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Agent configuration and MCP1 / 4

2 min lesson

Keep agent rules in the repository

Explain why rules belong in git and where to place shared and area-specific instructions.

Step 1 of 4

Project RulesVersion-controlled instructions in the repo that every Cursor agent interaction inherits, so standards are encoded once. Press Enter for the full definition. give the agent reusable instructions about a codebase. Put test, style and architecture requirements in the repository so the team does not have to repeat them in every request.

Cursor Project RulesVersion-controlled instructions in the repo that every Cursor agent interaction inherits, so standards are encoded once. Press Enter for the full definition. live in .cursor/rules/ as .mdc files. Their frontmatter can scope them to file patterns. A plain AGENTS.md can sit at the repository root or inside a subdirectory.

Keeping these rules in git gives changes a review, history and rollback path. A teammate can see who changed an instruction and why.

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Full explanation

Payments rule example

services/payments/AGENTS.md is nested, area-scoped and version-controlled
# Payments service rules
- All money is int cents; never float.
- Every new endpoint requires a contract test + an idempotency key.
- No new outbound network calls without an entry in ALLOWED_EGRESS.md.
- Follow the repository pattern; controllers must not import the DB client.
- Example to imitate: see charges/create_charge.py
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Optional practice

Check a monorepo rule setup

QA team puts every standard for a 40-service monorepo into one root AGENTS.md. What should it change?