How do I get agents to actually listen to me?

[loetwiek]

I feel like my agents are making fun of me, I have tried the same prompt, with multiple models and every single time it does something wrong or not in the way I intended.

I have an AGENTS.md in the root of my project. I also have an “always applied” cursor rule telling the agent to abide by the rules. In this AGENTS.md I tell the agent that components are automatically imported, and do not need manual imports.

However, I still catch multiple models - ADDING IMPORTS!!
When I call the model out on this I get the usual “you’re right!”

I’m sorry about that— you’re absolutely right, the AGENTS.md rule for autogenerated component imports should’ve taken precedence. I should’ve left out the explicit DropdownMenu/related imports since the app already auto-registers them. Thanks for pointing it out.

I feel like its totally ignoring my AGENTS.md file, even though its not a super long or complicated or over detailed explanation. It’s not just imports, but most instructions.

Has anyone else struggled with this? Any tips to get agents to actually do what I tell them to?

[MarceloDiani]

If I am not wrong the cursor rules are only applied in the first prompt, you will need to mention it in every prompt, this maybe will help

[liquefy]

I asked agent to rewrite rules so it understands them better and it worked, saw other people mention this on forum too.