Cursor rules completely broken?

Cursor version: 0.50.4

we’re using the new .mdc rules under .cursor/rules which looks like this

---
description:
globs:
alwaysApply: true
---
<rule content>

as i understand it, this rule should be applied automatically in every chat.
what i found out is that:

  • it doesn’t get applied, ever
  • when directly referenced in the chat as @rule.mdc, its content doesn’t get inlined as other files. instead the LLM has to search for it using the (incorrect) file name “@rule.mdc” and more often than not, it couldn’t find it.
  • there seems to be something special about the mdc files since change it to .md fixed the inlining issue.

so my question is, are rules completely broken in cursor?

3 Likes

I got the same issue, the workaround I found for now is to rely on globs instead and setting alwaysApply: false

1 Like

I am having the same issue as OP.

See if this helps: If your cursor rules are not loading, here's an workaround

I am having this same issue in 49.6 and 50.5 on Linux. The workaround seems to work, as long as I include a file in the context.

Cursor-0.49.6-x86_64.AppImage
Cursor-0.50.5-x86_64.AppImage

They are VERY broken ATM:

  1. Only *.mdc files are considered as “cursor rules”, don’t use other extensions.
  2. Inlining markdown files with @path.md or [doc](path.md) is broken, regardless if rule is auto-attached or manually mentioned.
  3. alwaysInclude: true is broken - never works in any combination of factors. Avoid.
  4. The only way to force-include a rule is to set alwaysInclude: false and globs: **/*, but you must include 1 or more files in the query, otherwise the globs don’t trigger inclusion of the file :person_facepalming:
  5. When you use the built-in editor, and use the @-mention feature to include another mdc file (.md files are not allowed), it creates a broken/ignored markdown [path.mdc](mdc:path.mdc) - this is never used, never works
  6. When you right-click MDC file, Open with and select Text you can edit the underlying markdown
  7. Use the @path.mdc notation to mention another file - but this does not guarantee inclusion, as it’s only a hint to the LLM. The model might or might not read the @-mentioned file depending on if it decides it’s relevant.
  8. … why does this even exist?
2 Likes

yeah it’s hard to imagine why it takes them so long to fix it, unless the dev team simply doesn’t care about this feature…

They don’t even care enough to spend $0.01 in AI credits to automatically fix this trivial bug with their own software.