message-box

message-box is a cursor rule for Cursor from zifeo/lade. It costs 11 tokens per session (387 once invoked), scanned A, original, MPL-2.0.

A project rule requiring all messages shown to users on stderr—the error output stream—to pass through MessageBox.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when implementing user-facing errors, warnings, and informational messages in the command-line application.
Why use it?
It prevents errors and warnings from appearing as unformatted output, including when the program runs in quiet mode.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Written for Cursor: installed under .cursor/.

Good fit Use it when implementing user-facing errors, warnings, and informational messages in the command-line application.

Compare 6 cursor rules from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/zifeo/lade/message-box
View source ↗ zifeo/lade
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.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zifeo/lade

Made for: Cursor.

Wrote 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.

agentmods badge for message-box

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box/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.

agentmods 80×15 button for message-box

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/rules/zifeo/lade/message-box.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
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 387 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00011 $0.00387
Opus 5.5 $0.00004 $0.00155
Sonnet 5.5 $0.00002 $0.00077
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00039

Measured 22d ago against content hash b798cd7fb347, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

message-box 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 22d 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/message-box.mdc · 40 lines

What it actually says

stderr: box for attention, report for results

Never use eprintln! from command code. User-facing stderr goes through message_box.

  • MessageBox when the user must notice: errors, warnings, disclaimers, pre-exec / pre-tool access failures, a new Lade release. The bordered box is the point.
  • Report for the result of a verb (lade setup, lade update, lade teardown, lade hook enable, add/remove, upgrade already current). Bold headings and colour when the terminal allows it. No border.

UiMode / is_interactive() gates prompts, countdowns, and sleeps. It must never suppress a MessageBox.

// ❌ BAD — setup success in a box
MessageBox::new().info().line("pre-exec  this shell").print_stderr();

// ✅ GOOD — command result
Report::new().heading("pre-exec  this shell").dim("Wraps commands you type.").print();

// ✅ GOOD — attention (pre-exec failure, or a new Lade release)
MessageBox::new().error().paragraph(e.to_string()).print_stderr();

Do not box lade setup / lade update success. After that report, if a newer Lade binary is available, emit a MessageBox (upgrade::nudge_if_available). Do not nag on lade set: stdout is the shell protocol.

Live setup / update: one tracker row per step (spinner, then ✔︎), same machinery as provider resolve. Mise logs update the current row. Never inherit the child stdio. mise env --json-extended stays captured and quiet.

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. 22d ago Changed · -3 lines · -1 tokens per session b798cd7fb347
  2. 1mo ago First seen · 43 lines · 12 tokens per session scan A c0645745ba25

Subscribe to this mod's changes

message-box is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository zifeo/lade (135 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MPL-2.0. It adds 11 tokens to every session and 387 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.