Opening a cursor project does not load project rules when cursor in started via command line, or using “Open in cursor” on a folder.
Steps to Reproduce
Start Cursor executable directly, open a project, add any project rule, the rule is listed.
Go to the project folder via shell, start cursor via the command cursor . the rule is not listed in project rules. Same behavior using right click in the folder and choosing “Open in cursor”
Expected Behavior
Always display my projects rules regardless the way cursor is started.
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)
Hey, do you mean your rules are not visible in the Cursor settings under the Rules & Memories tab, or are they missing in the project tree in the sidebar?
My rules are not visible in the settings under the Rules & Memories tab, how ever the files are displayed in the project tree sidebar under .cursor\rules.
I’m currently encountering this issue as well. Interestingly, the rules loaded properly for me the very first time I launched cursor after updating to 1.3.7 (i.e. the project rules were visible in the settings page, and even appeared in the chat context automatically). However, the rules no longer appear in subsequent launches.
For reference, my rule is located in <project root>/.cursor/rules/inline-exports.mdc, and is not ignored in .gitignore or .cursorignore.
Expand this to see its contents
---
alwaysApply: true
---
# Inline Export Rule
When exporting a functions, constant, classes, type, interface, or other TypeScript symbol, it must be exported using inline (individual) `export` statements directly on their declarations. Do not use grouped or bulk export objects (e.g., `export { foo, bar }`).
**Preferred:**
```ts
export function myFunction() { /* ... */ }
export const MY_CONST = 42;
```
**Not allowed:**
```ts
function myFunction() { /* ... */ }
const MY_CONST = 42;
export { myFunction, MY_CONST };
```
Also, the issue still happens with all extensions disabled (cursor --disable-extensions .).
@deanrie Let me know if you need any additional information I can provide, like cursor logs or something else.
Hey, thanks for the report. So this started happening after the update? Could you try creating one rule through the Cursor interface and check if your other rules appear? I think you might also need to restart Cursor.
It was happening for me before the update as well (in 1.2.x versions). The rules just happened to load properly once, on the first launch after updating to 1.3.7.
I just tried adding rules through the UI (Cursor Settings → Rules & Memories → Project Rules → Add Rule), and the issue still persists. I tried:
Adding an empty rule (only input a rule name, no other changes). This created the file .cursor/rules/update-test.mdc.
Adding another rule, then setting it to “Always Apply”. The file was created in .cursor/rules/update-readme.mdc. The rule looks like this:
---
alwaysApply: true
---
# Update README.md
After making changes to core functionality, update the README.md file to reflect the changes.
Both times, a rule file .cursor/rules/<TITLE_I_PROVIDED>.mdc was created, but cursor won’t recognize them. I also restarted cursor (close and reopen) and tried reloading using Developer: Reload Window. However, the issue still persists.
I just realized that project rules load successfully if I open cursor from the command line without specifying a project path.
Steps to reproduce:
Close all currently open instances of cursor.
Open your project from the command line: cursor path/to/project - This ensures it’s marked as the most recently opened project. Make sure the project has at least one project-level cursor rule. At this point, notice how no project rules are found in the settings page.
Close the project. This should leave you with zero cursor instances open.
Run cursor again, this time with no arguments. This time, you should see the rules load successfully in the settings page.
Short version: The issue occurs when running cursor path/to/project, but doesn’t occur when running cursor without arguments.
