# Rules in a symlinked subfolder (.mdc) are not followed (again) **URL:** \ **Category:** Bug Reports\ **Tags:** rules\ **Created:** [February 25, 2026, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918 "2026-02-25T12:39:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/bosco_domingo_benito/32/106467_2.png) [@Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Bosco_Domingo_Benito)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918/1 "2026-02-25T12:39:37Z")
### Where does the bug appear (feature/product)? Cursor IDE ### Describe the Bug Same as in the [previous post](https://forum.cursor.com/t/cursor-no-longer-can-follow-symlinks-to-rules-mdc-files/146010/10): if you symlink to a folder with rules in it, they aren’t loaded ### Steps to Reproduce Symlink a directory with rules inside into `.cursor/rules` (e.g. `ln -s ./my-rules .cursor/rules/shared`). ### Expected Behavior Rules are loaded into context after reloading ### Screenshots / Screen Recordings ![Screenshot 2026-02-25 143751.png](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/original/3X/b/c/bc6268403a394120338b033f9db95532c4bd871b.png) ### Operating System Windows 10/11 MacOS Linux ### Version Information 2.5.25 (User) ### Does this stop you from using Cursor No - Cursor works, but with this issue ## Notes This doesn’t happen if you symlink the rules directly in the base `.cursor/rules` folder, then they work as expected. **It’s just for symlinked directories** ---
**Author:** ![Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/bosco_domingo_benito/32/106467_2.png) [@Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Bosco_Domingo_Benito)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2026, 1:04pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918/4 "2026-03-02T13:04:46Z")
@Colin Can you please take a look? This is still broken ---
**Author:** ![Colin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/colin/32/90452_2.png) [@Colin](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Colin)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 12:46am UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918/5 "2026-03-03T00:46:33Z")
Thanks for the report @Bosco_Domingo_Benito! I tried to reproduce this by creating a directory with `.mdc` rules and symlinking it into `.cursor/rules/`: ```auto mkdir my-rules # ... added .mdc files to my-rules/ ... ln -s ../../my-rules .cursor/rules/shared ``` At first, the rules from the symlinked directory were not loaded. However, after a full window reload (`Cmd+Shift+P` / `Ctrl+Shift+P` → `Developer: Reload Window`), the rules from the symlinked directory were correctly picked up. Could you try that and let us know if that also resolves the issue? It seems like the file watcher may not detect newly added symlinked directories (and for that, we may want to log a bug), but a full reload triggers the rules discovery pipeline which does follow symlinks. ---
**Author:** ![Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/bosco_domingo_benito/32/106467_2.png) [@Bosco\_Domingo\_Benito](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Bosco_Domingo_Benito)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2026, 5:53pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918/7 "2026-03-03T17:53:56Z")
Yeah unfortunately that doesn’t work. For reference, here’s what my `.cursor/rules` looks like: ```bash ⚡ l .cursor/rules lrwxrwxrwx 1 bosco bosco 64 Mar 3 19:48 brainstorming.mdc → ../../resources/AI_LLMs/rules/generated/cursor/brainstorming.mdc lrwxrwxrwx 1 bosco bosco 34 Mar 2 14:36 context-health-check.mdc → generated/context-health-check.mdc lrwxrwxrwx 1 bosco bosco 46 Feb 23 16:54 generated → ../../resources/AI_LLMs/rules/generated/cursor ``` Both individual rules work as expected, even though `context-health-check.mdc` symlinks to its own sibling which is itself a symlink! And yet, the rest in that symlinked dir are all **not** loaded, not even after a reload or restarting Cursor completely. They are all valid rules, too, as I tested them by copying them all into `.cursor/rules` directly and they were successfully loaded then. Kinda stumped on this one. Could it be because of the name of the folder itself maybe? It’s definitely a valid symlink and the rules inside are too. And a quick sanity check after reloading, fresh chat: ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/original/3X/e/c/ec48aa8107a402f35d7f182e08d30aa0627e9dfd.png) Happy to provide logs privately Edit: it was indeed the name. Since I have a `generated/` in my `.gitignore` it was silently ignoring these too. Damn I’m dumb. Well I hope this serves as a solution for anyone who may run into this issue in the future 😂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/system/32/99069_2.png) [@system](https://forum.cursor.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/rules-in-a-symlinked-subfolder-mdc-are-not-followed-again/152918/8 "2026-03-25T17:54:08Z")
This topic was automatically closed 22 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.