Why don’t nested .cursor/rules/** directories work for MDC rules?

Bug Reports
1

Hey team, I noticed something odd with rule loading in Cursor.

I had a rule at:

.cursor/rules/domain/commit-after-tests-agent.mdc

…but it didn’t trigger.

When I moved it to the root:

.cursor/rules/commit-after-tests-agent.mdc

…it worked fine.

So:

✅ Rule at .cursor/rules/my-rule.mdc works

❌ Rule at .cursor/rules/some-folder/my-rule.mdc doesn’t

image
image771×663 112 KB

Is this a known limitation?
Is there any supported way to organize rules into subfolders (for domains or rule types)?
Would love to keep things tidy in larger workspaces.

Thanks!

2

Hi, yes this feature is documented with support for the main folder.

Project rules live in .cursor/rules

Unfortunately, asking AI why it didnt do things it doesnt know about always results in AI stating it should have known :slight_smile:. Note how the AI tries to be friendly and helpful instead of saying when it doesnt know things. You can fix this with Cursor Rules :slight_smile: but they have to be in the right place.

You can nest Cursor Rules within subprojects, however not within a Cursor rules folder.

project/
  .cursor/rules/        # Project-wide rules
  backend/
    server/
      .cursor/rules/    # Backend-specific rules
  frontend/
    .cursor/rules/      # Frontend-specific rules
1 Like
3

Thanks!

1 Like