I am confused about how Cursor determines to attach specific MDC cursor rule files.
In the metadata, you have:
---
description: RPC Service boilerplate
globs:
alwaysApply: false
---
But then there’s a separate section above in the Cursor interface with a dropdown for Rule Type (Always, Auto Attached, Agent Requested, Manual), and a description section.
These two sections do not seem to stay in sync and do not seem to relate to each other. How do they relate? Which one has priority? More clarification here would be very helpful. Thanks!
By description in your case, any UI change is going to be saved as header, a single header block. There is no priority as there can be only one header.
However that description is not helpful for AI. unless you ask Agent to “Make RPC Service boilerplate application”.
I can’t even access mine due to the known rules bug lol. Seems every convenience always yields short in every regard. None of the LLM’s work, Claude 4 is way to explicit with emojis (Works more like outdated chatgpt)? Overall I’m sure there’s a reason and a fix for all issues but until then I’m just going to do 99% of the work for them.
That said, I would leave it on always and have it auto-reference instead of any other options.
Sure thing! I’m also figuring stuff out so more than likely something on my end but I had it working perfect on my original project, but when I switched or opened “New Window” it changed. Thought now I see one saying “New window with profile” so might be it? I’ll do some tests to confirm but so far its only worked the once out of the three weeks I’ve used cursor intensely. (12 hours a day)
Any suggestions on what I’m doing wrong would be awesome, I just figured out some custom “hidden” settings I could add in my default profile (guess I never changed so wasn’t that issue), which has fixed couple issues. Still would like to have it always applied though instead of having to manually “tell” claude every time haha
Edit: Most likely the default metadata I had placed and forgot to changed. I’ll get that updated/optimized and see if that changes anything but I still feel like the first time it worked I didn’t have to do anything else.
The extra metadata you copied from another post doesnt do anything. Its not part of Cursor features as I explained there. The user who posted it wanted to share suggestions e.g. contextFiles, tags are not documented features.
.cursorrules is a file you can create in the project root. works like User Rule and is always attached if enabled in settings. Shouldnt be part of any project rule (mdc) file.
Description (only when alwaysapply = false, glob = ‘’) is provided to AI to match with your prompt and find which case applies.
Glob (only when alwaysapply = false, description = ‘’) is used when files match the glob.
You can always attach rules with @ but it shouldnt be necessary.
Let me know which ‘hidden’ settings you found in the default profile, happy to check things for you.
I’ll use this information and get back with you, I appreciate the time and dealing with my LLM incompetence. I will never be ready for the robots lol. @T1000
Edit: Oh dang so nothing fancy for the .cursor rules? You just put what you need and it still references?
.cursorrules file is like a always include project rule. Thats the first rule file Cursor had. (you can configure if it should be used in settings.
The content is just plain text.
I use it usually to provide basic guidance: e.g.
Always apply SOLID, DRY & SRP
(Those are general best practices about programming, applies to humans and AI )
HEY wait a minute, you changed the .cursor rules to now have it follow them “intelligently” based on its own guidance. That’s different right? At the least it’s worded/shown different from what I remember.
Great, since the beta is new, if you dont mind, please add your comment about your experience with it to the thread I linked. We are collecting feedback and bug reports there before public release.
e.g. 
)
This is great!