rule-porter

Switch AI editors without rewriting all your rules.

Convert Cursor rules to Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, or AGENTS.md. And back. Bidirectional. Zero dependencies.

npx rule-porter --to agents-md

The problem

Your rules are locked into one tool's format. Cursor uses .mdc files with YAML frontmatter and glob patterns. Claude Code uses CLAUDE.md. Copilot uses .github/copilot-instructions.md. None of them understand each other.

What you get

$ npx rule-porter --to agents-md

Converting 12 Cursor rules → AGENTS.md

  ✓ 9 rules converted cleanly
  ⚠ 3 rules had glob patterns (preserved as comments)

Written: AGENTS.md

Converting back works too:

npx rule-porter --from agents-md --to cursor
# → 12 individual .mdc files with frontmatter and globs restored

Supported formats

| Format | Read | Write | File | |--------|------|-------|------| | Cursor | ✅ | ✅ | .cursor/rules/*.mdc | | Cursor (legacy) | ✅ | — | .cursorrules | | AGENTS.md | ✅ | ✅ | AGENTS.md | | Claude Code | ✅ | ✅ | CLAUDE.md | | GitHub Copilot | ✅ | ✅ | .github/copilot-instructions.md | | Windsurf | ✅ | ✅ | .windsurfrules |

Common conversions

# Cursor → other formats
npx rule-porter --to agents-md
npx rule-porter --to claude-md
npx rule-porter --to copilot
npx rule-porter --to windsurf

# Other formats → Cursor
npx rule-porter --from agents-md --to cursor
npx rule-porter --from claude-md --to cursor

# Between any two formats
npx rule-porter --from agents-md --to claude-md

# Migrate legacy .cursorrules to .mdc
npx rule-porter --from cursorrules-legacy --to cursor

# Preview without writing
npx rule-porter --to agents-md --dry-run

What converts cleanly

• Rule names, descriptions, and body content
• Global vs conditional rule separation
• alwaysApply rules become top-level sections
• Globs are restored when converting back to Cursor

What gets flagged

• Glob patterns become comments in flat formats (markdown doesn't support file scoping)
• Manual-attach rules (no globs, not alwaysApply) get flagged for review
• No silent data loss. Every non-1:1 conversion produces a warning.

Options

--to <format>       Target format (required)
--from <format>     Source format (default: auto-detect)
--out <path>        Output file path
--dry-run           Preview without writing

Next step: check your converted rules

After converting, make sure they actually work:

npx cursor-doctor scan    # Health check with letter grade
npx cursor-doctor lint    # Detailed rule-by-rule linting

cursor-doctor catches broken frontmatter, conflicting instructions, and 100+ other issues. Also: rule-gen generates rules from your codebase using AI. npx rulegen-ai

License

MIT