Cursor neglecting STRICT rules on a regular base

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3

Hey, thanks for the detailed report. The incident format is really helpful.

This is a known issue. The agent does not always follow “stop and confirm” style rules, especially when a question suggests an action.

A couple of things that might help:

Where are your rules stored? The name USER_RULES.md suggests this might be a standalone file in your project root. For the most reliable enforcement, rules should be in .cursor/rules/ as .mdc files with alwaysApply: true in the frontmatter:

.cursor/rules/question-behavior.mdc

---
alwaysApply: true
---

## Questions vs Changes

CRITICAL: Question mark = answer only. No exceptions.
...

Community testing shows that .mdc files with alwaysApply: true follow rules much better than other formats. More details here: .cursorrules isn't loaded in agent mode. I tested it, here's what actually works

To help us track this further:

  • Which model are you using? (Claude, GPT, etc.)
  • Your Cursor version (Help > About Cursor > Copy)
  • A Request ID from one of these sessions (Chat context menu top right > Copy Request ID)

The team knows about rule enforcement issues, and your report helps us prioritize. Let me know if switching to .mdc improves things.