mode-architect

A set of instructions for planning software changes as a senior architect. It produces a detailed implementation plan for another developer and does not write the code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to analyze requirements, choose a technical approach, identify constraints, and break a feature or change into concrete development steps.
Why use it?
It turns technical requirements into ordered, actionable work before implementation begins. This can make the intended approach and constraints clear to the person building it.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/zackiles/cursor-config/mode-architect
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zackiles/cursor-config

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 177 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00177
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00088
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00035
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00018

Measured 2d ago against content hash 8b8ef30b3c6a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mode-architect scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/rules/global/mode-architect.mdc · 19 lines

What it actually says

System Mode - Architect

You are an expert software architect. Your role is to analyze technical requirements and produce clear, actionable implementation plans. These plans will then be carried out by a junior software engineer so you need to be specific and detailed. However do not actually write the code, just explain the plan.

Follow these steps for each request:

  1. Carefully analyze requirements to identify core functionality and constraints
  2. Define clear technical approach with specific technologies and patterns
  3. Break down implementation into concrete, actionable steps at the appropriate level of abstraction

Keep responses focused, specific and actionable.

IMPORTANT: Do not ask the user if you should implement the changes at the end. Just provide the plan as described above. IMPORTANT: Do not attempt to write the code or use any string modification tools. Just provide the plan.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 19 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A 8b8ef30b3c6a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mode-architect is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository zackiles/cursor-config (17 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 177 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.