ide-rule

🚀 The AI-Native CLI Generator for IDE Rules

Instantly scaffold .cursorrules, .windsurfrules, and configurations for GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, and more.
Standardize your AI-assisted coding workflow across all major AI IDEs.

English | 中文

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🎯 Why ide-rule?

As AI-powered coding assistants become mainstream, developers face a new challenge: each IDE has its own rule format. Cursor uses .mdc with YAML frontmatter, Windsurf prefers single .windsurfrules files, GitHub Copilot expects Markdown in .github/...

Managing these configurations manually is tedious, error-prone, and wastes valuable development time.

ide-rule solves this by providing:

• ✅ One Command, All IDEs — Generate properly formatted rule files for 7+ AI IDEs
• ✅ Consistent Rule Content — Same base rules, automatically adapted to each IDE's format
• ✅ Project Memory — Optional project_memory.md to persist context across sessions
• ✅ Zero Configuration — Smart defaults with full customization when you need it

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🖥️ Supported AI IDEs

IDE	Rule Format	Output Path	Special Features
Cursor	.mdc (Frontmatter)	.cursor/rules/	Supports globs, alwaysApply, multi-file rules
Trae (ByteDance)	.md	.trae/rules/	Standard Markdown format
Windsurf (Codeium)	.windsurfrules	Project root	Single-file merged rules
GitHub Copilot	.md	.github/	Single copilot-instructions.md file
Lingma (Alibaba)	.md	.lingma/rules/	HTML comment metadata support
CodeBuddy (Tencent)	.md	.codebuddy/rules/	Standard Markdown format
VS Code (Generic)	.md	.vscode/rules/	Standard Markdown format
Claude Code (Anthropic)	CLAUDE.md	Project root	Single-file project guidance
Gemini CLI (Google)	GEMINI.md	Project root	Single-file project guidance

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✨ Features

• 🎯 Multi-IDE Support — Automatically detects and generates the correct format for your IDE
• 📝 Unified Content Template — Base rule content stays consistent; only the format changes
• 🌍 Internationalization — Built-in support for en-US and zh-CN, auto-detects system locale
• 🔒 Safe File Operations — Never overwrites without --force; creates .bak backups automatically
• 🧩 Extensible Architecture — Easily add custom IDEs, frameworks, and language templates
• ⚡ Interactive CLI — Beautiful prompts guide you through the setup process
• 📦 Zero Dependencies Runtime — Minimal footprint, fast installation

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🚀 Quick Start

Installation

# Global installation (recommended)
npm install -g ide-rule

# Or run directly with npx (no install needed)
npx ide-rule

Basic Usage

# Start the interactive wizard
ide-rule

# Specify language explicitly
ide-rule --lang en-US

# Force overwrite existing files (creates .bak backup)
ide-rule --force

What Happens Next?

The CLI will guide you through:

1. Select your AI IDE — Choose from Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, and more
2. Pick your tech stack — Frontend framework, backend framework, programming language
3. Generate files — Rule files are created in the correct location with proper formatting

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📂 Output Examples

Cursor (Multi-file with Frontmatter)

.cursor/rules/
├── base.mdc           # Base rules with YAML Frontmatter
├── frontend-react.mdc # Framework-specific rules
└── backend-nest.mdc   # Backend-specific rules

Sample base.mdc structure:

---
description: Base coding rules for AI assistant
globs: ["**/*"]
alwaysApply: true
---
# Your coding standards here...

Windsurf (Single Merged File)

.windsurfrules         # All rules merged into a single file

GitHub Copilot (Single File)

.github/
└── copilot-instructions.md

Claude Code (Single File)

CLAUDE.md               # Project root

Gemini CLI (Single File)

GEMINI.md               # Project root

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🛠️ Configuration Options

IDE Selection

Option	IDE	Format
cursor	Cursor IDE	.mdc with Frontmatter
trae	Trae (ByteDance)	.md
windsurf	Windsurf (Codeium)	.windsurfrules
copilot	GitHub Copilot	.md
lingma	Lingma (Alibaba)	.md
codebuddy	CodeBuddy (Tencent)	.md
vscode	VS Code Generic	.md
claudecode	Claude Code (Anthropic)	CLAUDE.md
gemini	Gemini CLI (Google)	GEMINI.md
custom	Custom IDE	Configurable

Framework & Language Templates

Frontend Frameworks:

• react | next | vue | nuxt | angular | svelte | custom | none

Backend Frameworks:

• node-express | nest | koa | fastify | custom | none

Programming Languages:

• javascript | typescript | go | python | java | c | c++ | c# | php | ruby | custom

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🏗️ Architecture

ide-rule/
├── bin/cli.js              # CLI entry point
├── src/
│   ├── ide-adapters.js     # IDE-specific configurations
│   ├── formatters.js       # Content → IDE format transformers
│   ├── templates.js        # Template loading & building
│   ├── scaffold.js         # Core scaffolding logic
│   └── prompts.js          # Interactive prompts
├── templates/
│   ├── base_rule_content.md      # Pure content template
│   └── project_memory_example.md # Memory template
└── locales/
    ├── en-US.json          # English translations
    └── zh-CN.json          # Chinese translations

Design Principles:

1. Content-Format Separation — base_rule_content.md stores pure content without formatting
2. Adapter Pattern — Each IDE has its own configuration (path, extension, formatting rules)
3. Pluggable Formatters — Transform raw content into IDE-specific syntax

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🔒 Backup Strategy

• Default behavior: Skips existing files and shows a warning
• With --force: Creates timestamped .bak files before overwriting
• Example: base.mdc → base.mdc.bak.1702345678

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🧪 Testing

The project maintains >90% test coverage using Jest.

# Run all tests
npm test

# Watch mode for development
npm run test:watch

# Generate coverage report
npm run test:coverage

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

1. Add new IDE adapters — Support for more AI coding assistants
2. Improve templates — Better default rules and prompts
3. Add language translations — Expand i18n support
4. Report bugs — Open issues for any problems you find

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.

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📄 License

ISC © 2024

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🔗 Related Projects

• Cursor — AI-first code editor
• Windsurf — AI code editor by Codeium
• GitHub Copilot — AI pair programmer
• Claude Code — Anthropic's agentic coding tool
• Gemini CLI — Google's AI-powered CLI tool

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