Cursor rules completely broken?

Bug Reports
1

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
2

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

1 Like
3

I am having the same issue as OP.

4

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

5

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

6

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
7

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…

8

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