Cursor Project Rules - best practises in multi-project workspaces

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1

I have a workspace with two separate GitHub repositories inside the same parent folder locally.

parent folder/
├── .cursor/
│   └── rules/
├── repo 1/
│   ├── .cursor/
│   │   └── rules/
└── repo 2/
    ├── .cursor/
    │   └── rules/

Questions:

  1. Cursor Rule Application: When working in repo 2, does Cursor apply/evaluate against the rules from repo 2, or does it only look for rules at the root level?

  2. Best Practice: I keep both repos open together because they interact (making it easier to inject cross repo context when needed). But now I am wondering is it better to open each repo separately instead, at least in the context of better cursor rule handling?

  3. Codebase Indexing: In this thread, it’s mentioned that “codebase indexing doesn’t work fully for workspaces where the files are not within the same base folder.” Does this mean that as long as my files are locally within the same base folder, indexing will work correctly?

1 Like
2

Did you ever get an answer elsewhere or figure out any best practices around this?

1 Like
3

By now this question is somewhat outdated, at least for 1 & 2. These seem to be non issues with the latest updates.

Still not sure about indexing - but I do tend to keep co-related workspaces in the same base folder, so it’s not a problem for me.

4

Agree - I just got the .49 update, and big improvements with Rules!

1 Like
5

If I read this article it says latest version supports multi repo

I am still not able to see all the rules shown under cursor settings if I have multiple repo in single workspace

6

With the latest cursor version in my workspace, I still see cursor only show the top level rules in the cursor settings, and doesn’t pick repo 1 or repo 2 rules

parent folder/
├── .cursor/
│   └── rules/
├── repo 1/
│   ├── .cursor/
│   │   └── rules/
└── repo 2/
    ├── .cursor/
    │   └── rules/
7

I even tried importing single repo in one workspace having multiple .cursor/rules directory but its only fetching the parent folder .cursor/rules in the Cursor Settings.

parent folder/
├── .cursor/
│   └── rules/
├── src/
│   ├── .cursor/
│   │   └── rules/
└── scripts
    ├── .cursor/
    │   └── rules/

Can someone help whats the best way in single repo if we have client/server code as sub-folder whats the best practice?

We keep top level .cursor/rules and have sub-folder under it as clients/server or does the tool allow to have multiple .cursor/rules across sub-folder?

8

It is unclear how rules are used in a multi-project workspace. The Rules section of the Cursor Settings always displays “No Project Rules yet.”