v0.2.2
A curated set of rules and skills for Cursor and Claude Code that shape AI assistant behavior toward careful, minimal, high-quality code.
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
cursor-assistant.mdc |
Core behavioral guidelines — thinking before coding, simplicity, surgical changes, goal-driven execution |
safety.mdc |
Guards against destructive filesystem and git operations; package-manager detection before installs |
python.mdc |
Python-specific conventions and tooling standards |
memory-bank.mdc |
Memory-bank documentation pattern for session continuity — optional, see §Installation for details |
| Skill | Purpose |
|---|---|
skills/grill-me/ |
Relentless iterative interview that stress-tests a plan before any code is written — an explicit, structured version of "challenge me" |
skills/code-audit/ |
Thorough code audit from a senior engineer perspective covering correctness, architecture, performance, security, simplicity, and configurability — produces a prioritized issue report and implementation plan |
skills/extended-plan/ |
Audit-proof development planning in Cursor's native .plan.md format — explores the codebase read-only, decomposes the task into steps, and stress-tests each step against all code-audit dimensions before any code is written |
skills/install-jans-rules/ |
Installs all rules and skills from this repo into Cursor and/or Claude Code globally on the current machine — handles OS/path detection, memory-bank opt-in, and verification |
Adapted in part from mattpocock/skills, especially the grilling workflow.
The two rules I care about most are:
- Fix things at the cause, not the symptom.
- Challenge me. Evaluate my suggestions from all angles and push back when warranted.
The remaining guidelines (simplicity first, surgical changes, goal-driven execution) are heavily influenced by Andrej Karpathy's observations on LLM coding pitfalls, as packaged in forrestchang/andrej-karpathy-skills and complemented by some of namakshenas's 12 rules.
# SSH git clone git@github.com:jlbgit/JansCursorRules.git # HTTPS git clone https://github.com/jlbgit/JansCursorRules.git cd JansCursorRules
The install skill needs to be in your AI tool's global skills directory before it can be invoked. Copy it there from inside the cloned repo:
# Cursor (macOS/Linux) mkdir -p ~/.cursor/skills && cp -r skills/install-jans-rules ~/.cursor/skills/ # Claude Code (macOS/Linux) mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r skills/install-jans-rules ~/.claude/skills/
On Windows: replace ~/.cursor/ with %APPDATA%\Cursor\ and ~/.claude/ with %USERPROFILE%\.claude\.
In Cursor — open a chat and type:
/install-jans-rules
In Claude Code — start a session and say:
Use the install-jans-rules skill
The skill locates the repo by searching common paths (or asks if it can't find it), then:
- Detects your OS and config paths (asks if not found at the defaults)
- Installs the 3 core rules (
cursor-assistant,python,safety) globally - Asks whether to install
memory-bank— explains what it does first - Installs the 3 workflow skills (
code-audit,extended-plan,grill-me) — the install skill itself is excluded - For Claude Code, appends the rules as a delimited block to
CLAUDE.md
Re-running the skill switches to verify mode: diffs every installed file against the source and reports what's missing or outdated, without touching anything.
Copy files directly if you prefer:
- Rules:
.mdcfiles fromrules/→~/.cursor/rules/(Cursor global) or.cursor/rules/(project-scoped) - Skills: directories from
skills/→~/.cursor/skills/(Cursor) or~/.claude/skills/(Claude Code) - Claude Code rules: append rule content (without YAML frontmatter) to
~/.claude/CLAUDE.md
Invoke skills explicitly in chat:
| Say... | Skill triggered |
|---|---|
| "grill me on this plan" | grill-me — one-question-at-a-time stress-test |
| "code audit" / "code review" | code-audit — P1/P2/P3 issue report + implementation plan |
| "extended plan" / "let's plan this" | extended-plan — audit-proof step-by-step plan in .plan.md |
| "install jans rules" | install-jans-rules — install or verify this repo's rules and skills |