with-search

A rule that tells an agent to read a project's README.md and snapshot.xml before searching its code or files. The snapshot is a periodically generated XML copy of the codebase.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it at the beginning of codebase investigations, especially when locating files, understanding project structure, or deciding whether the snapshot needs updating.
Why use it?
It gives the agent the project's overview and a broad codebase map before it starts targeted searches.

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/with-search
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zackiles/cursor-config

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 11 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 181 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 $0.00011 $0.00181
Opus 5 $0.00005 $0.00090
Sonnet 5 $0.00002 $0.00036
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00018

Measured 2d ago against content hash cf3fb9ba7e0f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

with-search 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/with-search.mdc · 14 lines

What it actually says

Before Using Your Tools To Search The Codebase Or Files

Before using your tools to understand the codebase, start by reviewing the following known files:

  • User-facing Project README: README.md
  • Codebase Snapshot File: snapshot.xml
    • Repomix is used to periodically take a snapshot of the entire codebase into a single xml file that can be found at snapshot.xml
    • If the file is out of date you can regenerate it by running the script: build-snapshot.sh
  • Fallback on your regular tools and approach if you can't find what you're looking for using those
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 · 14 lines · 11 tokens per session scan A cf3fb9ba7e0f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

with-search is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository zackiles/cursor-config (17 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 181 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. 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.