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.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zackiles/cursor-configWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/rules/zackiles/cursor-config/prepare)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/zackiles/cursor-config/prepare"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/zackiles/cursor-config/prepare/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/zackiles/cursor-config/prepare"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/zackiles/cursor-config/prepare.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>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.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00000 | $0.01231 |
| Opus 5.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00492 |
| Sonnet 5.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00246 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00000 | $0.00123 |
Grade A, and why
prepare 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 1mo 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.
This is a copy
94% identical to prepare — 5 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 106 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
Steps to Take Before Reasoning
Immediately before you start reasoning about the human’s prompt, perform the following research steps to gather broad context. Collect any information relevant to the prompt or that would help execute on it effectively:
- Search all packages for shared libraries, utilities, and patterns
- Note what can be reused to avoid redundancy.
- Find and note any schemas, models, types, constants, or configuration files
- Collect relevant structured data critical to the function of the codebase and application.
- Locate coding standards and practices
- Identify conventions you must follow for naming, file structure, code formatting, etc.
- Identify existing tooling, scripts, and workflows
- Note any automated processes or frameworks already in place.
- Review overarching CI/CD pipelines and deployment models
- Ensure your contributions align with established build, test, and release processes.
- Check existing versioning and release management practices
- Understand how changes are documented, tagged, and published.
- Assess design patterns, syntax preferences, or stylistic approaches
- Confirm you are imitating the prevailing style unless it is severely flawed.
Use these findings to maintain consistency and preserve the codebase’s cohesiveness.
Rules for Prepping When Proposing a Solution
-
Recall the Research Objective
- Your proposal must fit seamlessly into the existing architecture, leveraging documented patterns and standards.
-
Incorporate Research Findings
- Reuse any shared libraries or utilities discovered in the “Steps to Take Before Reasoning.”
- Respect existing schemas, models, constants, or configurations to avoid conflicts and duplication.
- Align your proposal with established coding and deployment standards so it can pass automated checks.
-
Draft a High-Level Plan
- Provide a concise outline of how the solution should work.
- Highlight any significant performance, security, or maintainability considerations.
- Call out dependencies, tools, or frameworks that will be involved.
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.
- 1mo ago First seen · 106 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A f1386e0feb0b
prepare 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 1,231 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 94% identical to prepare, differing in 5 lines, and is treated as a copy.
Other cursor rules, from other repositories
ponytail
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angular-20
This rule provides comprehensive best practices and coding standards for Angular development, focusing on modern TypeScript, standalone components, signals, and performance optimizations.
dev-standard
Apache Superset development standards and guidelines for Cursor IDE.
prefer-direct-imports-over-module-mocks
Prefer extracting a testable core over vi.mock / vi.resetModules when unit tests need to reach production logic entangled with config, env, or singletons.
config-validation-and-normalization
Config validation and normalization responsibilities (defineConfig normalizes, the orm section schema validates and resolves paths, the loader reports per-section diagnostics).
control-plane-descriptors
Control plane descriptor and instance implementation patterns.