agent-rules-books
AGENTS.md rules / skills for AI coding agents: Codex, Cursor & Claude Code. Inspired by Clean Code, Refactoring, DDD, Clean Architecture and DDIA programming books.
Install / Use
npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-booksInstalls into whichever agent you are using.
.cursorrules
Cursor IDE rules (legacy)
Quality Score
Category
Development & EngineeringSupported Platforms
Our assessment of agent-rules-books
agent-rules-books scores 95/100 on our quality scale, 262nd of 4,617 Development & Engineering skills we index (top 6%).
Its .cursorrules is 18 KB long, well organised into 31 sections with 4 code examples: a thorough specification that gives an agent plenty to work with.
With 3,202 GitHub stars, it is one of the more widely adopted skills in the catalogue.
Maintenance, license and trust
- The repository was last updated about 2 months ago, so agent-rules-books is actively maintained.
- Our last check on 2026-10-20 found the source still online.
- It is released under the MIT license, a permissive license that allows use, modification and commercial use with attribution.
- Its trust signals score 100/100, with no cautions. These come from repository metadata, not a code audit — read the skill file before letting an agent act on it.
Safety scan
No issues foundOur scan of the whole file found no instruction hijacking, hidden characters, credential access, data exfiltration or destructive commands. An AI review of the same text found nothing harmful.
AI review by kimi-k2.7-code on 2026-09-24. Automated pattern scan on 2026-09-24. It catches known dangerous patterns, not every risk — read a skill before letting an agent act on it.
agent-rules-books compared with similar skills
All 4 of these similar skills score higher than agent-rules-books; compare them before choosing.
| Skill | Score | Stars | Updated | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| agent-rules-books (this skill)by ciembor | 95 | 3.2k | 56d ago | .cursorrules |
| taste-skillby Leonxlnx | 100 | 110.6k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| ai-job-searchby ai-job-search-dev | 100 | 69.8k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| claude-howtoby luongnv89 | 100 | 46.6k | 2d ago | CLAUDE.md |
| algorithmic-artby anthropics | 100 | 177.9k | 44d ago | SKILL.md |
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install agent-rules-books?
- Run
npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books. The install tabs above show the steps for each supported agent. - Which AI agents does agent-rules-books work with?
- It is written for Cursor, Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, as a .cursorrules file. Other agents that read the same format can often use it too.
- Is agent-rules-books safe to use?
- Our scan of the whole file found no instruction hijacking, hidden characters, credential access, data exfiltration or destructive commands. An AI review of the same text found nothing harmful. It is MIT-licensed and scores 100/100 on trust signals. Skills are instructions an agent will follow, so read the file before installing it and do not approve commands you do not understand.
- Is agent-rules-books still maintained?
- The repository was last updated about 2 months ago, so agent-rules-books is actively maintained.
Skill content
View source on GitHub
About
MIT licensed universal project rules for coding agents.
This repository contains ready-to-use rule sets inspired by well-known books on software design, architecture, refactoring, legacy code, reliability, and data-intensive systems.
For editor-specific setup in Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor, see USAGE.md. It covers always-on vs on-demand usage, skills, scoped rules, and the preferred setup for each editor.
Each rule set is released in three tool-agnostic Markdown versions:
mini: the recommended version for most real task usenano: the compact fallback for very tight context budgetsfull: the canonical complete source and reference version
For constructive criticism from Reddit, see CRITICISM.md.
For release history, see CHANGELOG.md.
Installation as Skills
Prerequisite: install Node.js with npm. You can run the Skills CLI through npx without installing skills separately.
Install all book skills with the open Agent Skills CLI:
npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --all
List available skills without installing:
npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --list
Install one selected skill:
npx skills add ciembor/agent-rules-books --skill refactoring
Every book directory contains a standard SKILL.md entrypoint. The skill loads the corresponding mini rule set by default and keeps the full file available as deeper reference material.
If you prefer another setup, see USAGE.md for manual, scoped, always-on, and editor-specific installation patterns.
Release Matrix
Metrics:
lines: physical line count fromwc -lrules: Markdown list items counted with the deterministic release conventionsize: raw bytes fromwc -c
| Rule Set | Full file | Full lines | Full rules | Full size | Mini file | Mini lines | Mini rules | Mini size | Nano file | Nano lines | Nano rules | Nano size | | --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | | A Philosophy of Software Design | full | 370 | 177 | 13561 B | mini | 46 | 28 | 5774 B | nano | 35 | 17 | 2258 B | | Clean Architecture | full | 515 | 289 | 17782 B | mini | 49 | 31 | 5486 B | nano | 36 | 18 | 2254 B | | Clean Code | full | 297 | 220 | 13851 B | mini | 47 | 29 | 3804 B | nano | 32 | 14 | 1235 B | | Code Complete | full | 354 | 180 | 12407 B | mini | 56 | 38 | 6717 B | nano | 41 | 23 | 2544 B | | Designing Data-Intensive Applications | full | 393 | 205 | 16084 B | mini | 55 | 37 | 6949 B | nano | 34 | 16 | 2575 B | | Domain-Driven Design | full | 979 | 523 | 42424 B | mini | 48 | 30 | 5683 B | nano | 39 | 21 | 2266 B | | Domain-Driven Design Distilled | full | 317 | 158 | 11351 B | mini | 56 | 38 | 6438 B | nano | 41 | 23 | 2535 B | | Implementing Domain-Driven Design | full | 337 | 177 | 12848 B | mini | 57 | 39 | 7333 B | nano | 37 | 19 | 2723 B | | Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture | full | 404 | 196 | 15501 B | mini | 54 | 36 | 8099 B | nano | 35 | 17 | 2823 B | | Refactoring | full | 433 | 242 | 17866 B | mini | 49 | 31 | 5167 B | nano | 37 | 19 | 1986 B | | Release It! | full | 382 | 204 | 13542 B | mini | 48 | 30 | 6372 B | nano | 38 | 20 | 2205 B | | The Pragmatic Programmer | full | 359 | 179 | 13398 B | mini | 65 | 47 | 7165 B | nano | 44 | 26 | 2263 B | | Working Effectively with Legacy Code | full | 371 | 193 | 13817 B | mini | 50 | 32 | 5707 B | nano | 35 | 17 | 1792 B | | Refactoring.Guru | full | 765 | 478 | 62561 B | mini | 64 | 46 | 6287 B | nano | 41 | 23 | 2593 B |
Books List
A Philosophy of Software Design
Author: John Ousterhout
The book focuses on fighting complexity through deep modules, simple interfaces, information hiding, and design choices that reduce cognitive load. This rule set is especially useful for API design, module design, and refactoring shallow abstractions.
Clean Architecture
Author: Robert C. Martin
The book describes designing systems around stable boundaries, the dependency rule, and the separation of business policies from details such as frameworks, databases, and UI. This rule set helps keep code resistant to technology churn.
Clean Code
Author: Robert C. Martin
The book focuses on readability, naming, small functions, responsibilities, tests, and simplicity. This rule set is a strong default for everyday coding and code review.
Code Complete
Author: Steve McConnell
The book covers a broad range of software construction practices: routine design, variables, classes, control flow, defensive programming, coding standards, and testing. This rule set helps agents make disciplined implementation decisions.
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
Author: Martin Kleppmann
The book covers reliability, scalability, consistency, replication, partitioning, transactions, data streams, and schema evolution. This rule set is intended for systems where data ownership, event flows, and consistency semantics matter.
Domain-Driven Design
Author: Eric Evans
The book introduces domain modeling, ubiquitous language, bounded contexts, tactical patterns, and strategic design. This rule set helps agents think in terms of the business model rather than tables, controllers, or DTOs.
Domain-Driven Design Distilled
Author: Vaughn Vernon
The book is a short, practical introduction to DDD. It focuses on subdomains, bounded contexts, context mapping, and basic tactical patterns. This rule set is a good fit when you want the benefits of DDD without excessive ceremony.
Implementing Domain-Driven Design
Author: Vaughn Vernon
The book shows how to apply DDD in real systems: aggregates, domain events, contexts, integrations, and application architecture. This rule set is more implementation-focused than domain-driven-design-distilled.
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
Author: Martin Fowler
The book catalogues enterprise application patterns: layers, service layer, transaction script, domain model, data mapper, repository, unit of work, identity map, DTO, and integration patterns. This rule set helps choose an appropriate pattern instead of mixing responsibilities accidentally.
Refactoring
Author: Martin Fowler
The book describes safe ways to improve code structure without changing observable behavior. This rule set emphasizes small steps, tests, code smell detection, and keeping refactoring separate from feature changes.
Refactoring.Guru
Source: Refactoring.Guru
The site provides a practical refactoring process, code smell catalog, and catalog of refactoring techniques. This rule set is useful when an agent needs to diagnose smells, choose a safe treatment, preserve behavior, and stop before cleanup turns into uncontrolled redesign.
[Release It!](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1069827.
Truncated for display — read the full file on GitHub.
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Trust signals
From repository metadata: license, adoption, age and documentation. Not a code audit — see the Safety scan above for what the skill file itself contains.