ide-rule

🎯 Why ide-rule?

As AI-powered coding assistants become mainstream, developers face a new challenge: each IDE has its own rule format. Cursor uses .mdc with YAML frontmatter, Windsurf prefers single .windsurfrules files, GitHub Copilot expects Markdown in .github/...

Managing these configurations manually is tedious, error-prone, and wastes valuable development time.

ide-rule solves this by providing:

• ✅ One Command, All IDEs — Generate properly formatted rule files for 7+ AI IDEs
• ✅ Consistent Rule Content — Same base rules, automatically adapted to each IDE's format
• ✅ Project Memory — Optional project_memory.md to persist context across sessions
• ✅ Zero Configuration — Smart defaults with full customization when you need it

🖥️ Supported AI IDEs

| IDE | Rule Format | Output Path | Special Features | |-----|-------------|-------------|------------------| | Cursor | .mdc (Frontmatter) | .cursor/rules/ | Supports globs, alwaysApply, multi-file rules | | Trae (ByteDance) | .md | .trae/rules/ | Standard Markdown format | | Windsurf (Codeium) | .windsurfrules | Project root | Single-file merged rules | | GitHub Copilot | .md | .github/ | Single copilot-instructions.md file | | Lingma (Alibaba) | .md | .lingma/rules/ | HTML comment metadata support | | CodeBuddy (Tencent) | .md | .codebuddy/rules/ | Standard Markdown format | | VS Code (Generic) | .md | .vscode/rules/ | Standard Markdown format | | Claude Code (Anthropic) | CLAUDE.md | Project root | Single-file project guidance | | Gemini CLI (Google) | GEMINI.md | Project root | Single-file project guidance |

✨ Features

• 🎯 Multi-IDE Support — Automatically detects and generates the correct format for your IDE
• 📝 Unified Content Template — Base rule content stays consistent; only the format changes
• 🌍 Internationalization — Built-in support for en-US and zh-CN, auto-detects system locale
• 🔒 Safe File Operations — Never overwrites without --force; creates .bak backups automatically
• 🧩 Extensible Architecture — Easily add custom IDEs, frameworks, and language templates
• ⚡ Interactive CLI — Beautiful prompts guide you through the setup process
• 📦 Zero Dependencies Runtime — Minimal footprint, fast installation

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

# Global installation (recommended)
npm install -g ide-rule

# Or run directly with npx (no install needed)
npx ide-rule

Basic Usage

# Start the interactive wizard
ide-rule

# Specify language explicitly
ide-rule --lang en-US

# Force overwrite existing files (creates .bak backup)
ide-rule --force

What Happens Next?

The CLI will guide you through:

1. Select your AI IDE — Choose from Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, and more
2. Pick your tech stack — Frontend framework, backend framework, programming language
3. Generate files — Rule files are created in the correct location with proper formatting

📂 Output Examples

Cursor (Multi-file with Frontmatter)

.cursor/rules/
├── base.mdc           # Base rules with YAML Frontmatter
├── frontend-react.mdc # Framework-specific rules
└── backend-nest.mdc   # Backend-specific rules

Sample base.mdc structure:

---
description: Base coding rules for AI assistant
globs: ["**/*"]
alwaysApply: true
---
# Your coding standards here...

Windsurf (Single Merged File)

.windsurfrules         # All rules merged into a single file

GitHub Copilot (Single File)

.github/
└── copilot-instructions.md

Claude Code (Single File)

CLAUDE.md               # Project root

Gemini CLI (Single File)

GEMINI.md               # Project root

🛠️ Configuration Options

IDE Selection

| Option | IDE | Format | |--------|-----|--------| | cursor | Cursor IDE | .mdc with Frontmatter | | trae | Trae (ByteDance) | .md | | windsurf | Windsurf (Codeium) | .windsurfrules | | copilot | GitHub Copilot | .md | | lingma | Lingma (Alibaba) | .md | | codebuddy | CodeBuddy (Tencent) | .md | | vscode | VS Code Generic | .md | | claudecode | Claude Code (Anthropic) | CLAUDE.md | | gemini | Gemini CLI (Google) | GEMINI.md | | custom | Custom IDE | Configurable |

Framework & Language Templates

Frontend Frameworks:

• react | next | vue | nuxt | angular | svelte | custom | none

Backend Frameworks:

• node-express | nest | koa | fastify | custom | none

Programming Languages:

• javascript | typescript | go | python | java | c | c++ | c# | php | ruby | custom

🏗️ Architecture

ide-rule/
├── bin/cli.js              # CLI entry point
├── src/
│   ├── ide-adapters.js     # IDE-specific configurations
│   ├── formatters.js       # Content → IDE format transformers
│   ├── templates.js        # Template loading & building
│   ├── scaffold.js         # Core scaffolding logic
│   └── prompts.js          # Interactive prompts
├── templates/
│   ├── base_rule_content.md      # Pure content template
│   └── project_memory_example.md # Memory template
└── locales/
    ├── en-US.json          # English translations
    └── zh-CN.json          # Chinese translations

Design Principles:

1. Content-Format Separation — base_rule_content.md stores pure content without formatting
2. Adapter Pattern — Each IDE has its own configuration (path, extension, formatting rules)
3. Pluggable Formatters — Transform raw content into IDE-specific syntax

🔒 Backup Strategy

• Default behavior: Skips existing files and shows a warning
• With --force: Creates timestamped .bak files before overwriting
• Example: base.mdc → base.mdc.bak.1702345678

🧪 Testing

The project maintains >90% test coverage using Jest.

# Run all tests
npm test

# Watch mode for development
npm run test:watch

# Generate coverage report
npm run test:coverage

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

1. Add new IDE adapters — Support for more AI coding assistants
2. Improve templates — Better default rules and prompts
3. Add language translations — Expand i18n support
4. Report bugs — Open issues for any problems you find

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.

📄 License

ISC © 2024

🔗 Related Projects

• Cursor — AI-first code editor
• Windsurf — AI code editor by Codeium
• GitHub Copilot — AI pair programmer
• Claude Code — Anthropic's agentic coding tool
• Gemini CLI — Google's AI-powered CLI tool