Why can’t I see my rules? I have to go into the settings to find them. Previously, restarting Cursor would make them load, but now they simply don’t show up at all
Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cloud Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)
Describe the Bug
Why can’t I see my rules? I have to go into the settings to find them. Previously, restarting Cursor would make them load, but now they simply don’t show up at all.
Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cloud Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)
Describe the Bug
Why can’t I see my rules? I have to go into the settings to find them. Previously, restarting Cursor would make them load, but now they simply don’t show up at all.
Hey, thanks for the report. I can see the screenshots with your local rules config and the UI state.
Your project rules are still there and they are being applied. This is a display issue on the Customize page, not the rules being lost.
What’s happening: on the Customize page in the Agents Window, there’s a scope selector next to the Plugins/MCPs/Rules tabs. Right now it shows your account name. While account scope is selected, project rules won’t show up, so you see an empty screen.
Workaround:
Open the Customize page, then the Rules tab.
Click the scope selector that shows your account name, then select your workspace or project.
Your project rules should appear in the list.
Settings → Rules always shows the workspace-scoped view, so the rules show up there right away.
Rules not auto-loading on the Customize page after a restart is not expected behavior, and it’s not caused by your setup. I’ve shared this with the team and we’re tracking it. I’ll post an update here when I have one. Let me know if the workaround helped.
/Users/mumu/.cursor/rules is my global configuration directory on macOS, not a project-specific directory. How can I get my global configuration to appear in the rules list? Even after selecting “all projects” (or the “all” option), my list of rules still doesn’t show up. Does the system support displaying global rules within the custom rules section? Regarding your comment—“Settings → Rules: Always show workspace-scoped view”—I’m not sure exactly which menu or setting controls this to ensure my rules list is displayed.
It does indeed show up when placed within the project itself, but I want to reuse the same set of rules across different branches of the same project—or even across multiple projects—without having to copy and maintain a separate set for each one. Why isn’t it possible to display the rules stored in the macOS global user configuration? That would make it much more convenient to customize and manage them centrally. Right now, I can’t see the list of rules from the global configuration; I have to go into the global directory itself to manage them.
Thanks for clarifying. This is a different setup than in the original post. Your rules are in ~/.cursor/rules (a global user directory), and that’s separate from project rules.
Here’s how it works today.
About ~/.cursor/rules/*.mdc. These files are only partially supported, and there are two gotchas that can make the list look empty:
A file without --- frontmatter is silently ignored. If your .mdc starts right away with # ... and doesn’t have a --- block at the top, it won’t be picked up. Frontmatter fields like description, globs, and alwaysApply are required.
Cursor searches upward from the opened project directory. So ~/.cursor/rules is only found if the project itself is inside your home directory. If your project lives somewhere else, the global folder won’t be loaded. This is a known limitation we’re tracking, but there’s no ETA yet.
What works reliably for one set of rules for all projects. Use User Rules: Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) > Rules > User Rules > New rule. This is plain text with no frontmatter or globs. It’s global and injected into every Agent chat no matter where the project is located. For tone and general preferences, this is the easiest path.
Why rules show up in Settings but not in Customize. Settings > Rules shows workspace scoped project rules plus User Rules. Use Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings), open the Rules tab.
Another option, if you want to keep everything in a personal repo and reuse it across projects, is to package it as a plugin with always-on rules. Another user did this and it worked well for them.
The rules seem to work, but they don’t appear in the Cursor rules list, making unified maintenance difficult. Is there support for loading global rules into the application for management?
Hey, thanks for clarifying. Everything is working as intended, it’s just not what you’d intuitively expect.
Rules from ~/.cursor/rules/*.mdc the global folder in home currently do not show up in the list on the Customize page or in Settings > Rules. That list only shows project rules from .cursor/rules inside the workspace plus User Rules. So your .mdc files can still apply via globs, but you won’t see them in the management list. One more nuance: Cursor searches for .cursor/rules up the directory tree from the project folder, so the global ~/.cursor/rules is only picked up if the project is inside home.
If you want one set of rules for all projects and also want to see and edit it from the UI, you’ve got a few options:
Plugin I recommend this for file backed rules. This is the officially supported way to keep .mdc rules outside a specific project and still see them in the UI under the Plugin tab. Structure:
{
"name": "my-plugin",
"description": "My global rules",
"version": "1.0.0",
"author": { "name": "Your Name" }
}
After that, restart or run Developer: Reload Window. More details: Plugins | Cursor Docs
User Rules: Cursor Settings (not VS Code settings) > Rules > User Rules > New rule. This is global text with no frontmatter and no globs. It gets injected into every Agent chat regardless of where the project is located, it’s managed in the UI, and it syncs with your account across machines unlike ~/.cursor/rules, which stay local only.
