with-tool-thinking

A rule that tells an agent to use a separate thinking tool for complex reasoning or brainstorming. The tool records ideas but does not fetch information or change repository files.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when exploring a bug, planning a refactor, designing a feature, or assessing several possible approaches and their trade-offs.
Why use it?
It provides a place to compare possible fixes, designs, or debugging hypotheses without performing those actions immediately. This can make complex decisions easier to organize.

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-tool-thinking
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 203 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. 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 $0.00203
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00102
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00041
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00020

Measured 2d ago against content hash a1a61bb94da3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

with-tool-thinking scanned grade B with 1 finding 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.

Unrestricted tool accessmediumExcessive agency

A wildcard tool grant or "run any command" leaves no least-privilege boundary at all.

The tool simply logs your thought process for better transparency and does not execute any code or make changes.
.cursor/rules/global/with-tool-thinking.mdc · 17 lines

What it actually says

Use the Tool and Think Deeply

Use the tool to think about something. It will not obtain new information or make any changes to the repository, but just log the thought. Use it when complex reasoning or brainstorming is needed.

Common use cases:

  1. When exploring a repository and discovering the source of a bug, call this tool to brainstorm several unique ways of fixing the bug, and assess which change(s) are likely to be simplest and most effective
  2. After receiving test results, use this tool to brainstorm ways to fix failing tests
  3. When planning a complex refactoring, use this tool to outline different approaches and their tradeoffs
  4. When designing a new feature, use this tool to think through architecture decisions and implementation details
  5. When debugging a complex issue, use this tool to organize your thoughts and hypotheses

The tool simply logs your thought process for better transparency and does not execute any code or make changes.

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 · 17 lines · 0 tokens per session scan B a1a61bb94da3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

with-tool-thinking 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 203 tokens. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (unrestricted tool access). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.