Sonnet 4.6 is confused?

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8

Glad that 4.6 and Opus 4.8 are behaving more reasonably now.

By the rules, whether rules.mdc gets read automatically depends on its frontmatter:

  • alwaysApply: true means the rule is always injected into the context, so the model sees it in every request.
  • globs: ... means the rule is pulled in when there are files in the context that match the glob.
  • Only description (Agent Requested) means the rule isn’t injected right away, and the model decides on its own whether to pull it in. This is where it can end up skipping it.

If you want the rule to apply every time, make sure it has alwaysApply: true set, not just description. More details on rule types: Rules | Cursor Docs

So I can check more precisely, please send:

  • The frontmatter of your rules.mdc (the first lines between ---)
  • A short example where the rule should’ve applied but the model ignored it

If the rules have alwaysApply: true and still don’t apply, it might be the same issue discussed here: `alwaysApply: true` rules are being completely ignored now Check if it matches your case.