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Cursor rules: .cursor/rules and .cursorrules in open source repos

Cursor rules are instruction files that Cursor reads from the repo. The current form is a .cursor/rules/ folder of .mdc files, each covering one topic such as architecture or naming. The older form is a single .cursorrules file at the repo root.

How many repos pass

Of the 371 repos on the leaderboard, 15 pass in full (4%), 3 pass in part (0.8%) and 353 fail (95%).

Why agents need it

Cursor's Rules docs name .cursor/rules/*.mdc and AGENTS.md as the places it takes repo instructions from. No other agent we score reads the Cursor files, so this check only affects the Cursor score.

How we score it

  • Full pass: a .cursor/rules/ folder with at least one .mdc file.
  • 50%: only the legacy .cursorrules file. Cursor still reads it, but it is deprecated.
  • Fail: neither is present.

The methodology has the formula that turns checks into a score.

How to pass

Create .cursor/rules/ and add one .mdc file per topic: how the code is organised, naming and style rules, how to run tests. If you have a .cursorrules file, move its content into .mdc files.

Which agents count it most

Pass rate by language

Top-scoring repos that pass

Popular repos that fail it