# alwaysApply: true rules AND .cursorrules both silently treated as "requestable" instead of auto-injected — Cursor 3.0.16 macOS

**URL:** <https://forum.cursor.com/t/alwaysapply-true-rules-and-cursorrules-both-silently-treated-as-requestable-instead-of-auto-injected-cursor-3-0-16-macos/157431>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Tags:** context, rules\
**Created:** [April 11, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/alwaysapply-true-rules-and-cursorrules-both-silently-treated-as-requestable-instead-of-auto-injected-cursor-3-0-16-macos/157431 "2026-04-11T16:45:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 8

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**Author:** ![deanrie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/deanrie/32/1263_2.png) [@deanrie](https://forum.cursor.com/u/deanrie)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/alwaysapply-true-rules-and-cursorrules-both-silently-treated-as-requestable-instead-of-auto-injected-cursor-3-0-16-macos/157431/8 "2026-04-22T13:03:08Z")

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Hey, thanks, that’s enough info. I took a look.

A couple things I’d like to check to narrow down the cause:

1. The project path includes CJK characters `影像云工程`. We’ve seen a similar class of bugs where path normalization breaks `alwaysApply` rule classification in some cases. It’s currently documented for Windows UNC, but a Unicode path on macOS is a good candidate too. Can you copy the project to a path without any non ASCII characters, like `/Users/liukai/Documents/test-rules/`, and see if it still reproduces there? This is the fastest way to confirm the hypothesis.

2. In `memory.mdc` you have both `alwaysApply: true` and `globs: ["**/*"]`. If `alwaysApply: true` is set, you don’t need `globs`. They conflict semantically, and in some versions this can cause the rule to be classified by globs. Try removing the `globs` line from all 6 rules and reload the window.

3. Also check Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) \> Rules to see how each rule’s type is shown after the edits. It should be `Always` with a green dot, not `Agent Requested`.

As a workaround, you can explicitly mention the critical rule via `@memory.mdc` at the start of the chat while we figure out the root cause.

Let me know if the ASCII path test and removing `globs` helped. That’ll really help pin down the bug. This issue is known in this general class, there’s no specific fix for macOS plus Unicode paths yet, but if this confirms it, I’ll report it as a separate case.

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_[View the full topic](https://forum.cursor.com/t/alwaysapply-true-rules-and-cursorrules-both-silently-treated-as-requestable-instead-of-auto-injected-cursor-3-0-16-macos/157431)._