Ruler: Centralise Your AI Coding Assistant Instructions

<table style="width:100%"> <tr> <td style="vertical-align: top;"> <p> <a href="https://github.com/intellectronica/ruler/actions/workflows/ci.yml"><img src="https://github.com/intellectronica/ruler/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg" alt="CI"></a> <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/@intellectronica/ruler"><img src="https://badge.fury.io/js/%40intellectronica%2Fruler.svg" alt="npm version"></a> <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-yellow.svg" alt="License: MIT"> </p> <ul> <li><strong>GitHub</strong>: <a href="https://github.com/intellectronica/ruler">intellectronica/ruler</a></li> <li><strong>NPM</strong>: <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/@intellectronica/ruler">@intellectronica/ruler</a></li> </ul> <hr /> <p> <em>Animation by <a href="https://isaacflath.com/">Isaac Flath</a> of <strong><a href="https://elite-ai-assisted-coding.dev/">Elite AI-Assisted Coding</a></strong></em> ➡︎ </p> </td> <td style="vertical-align: top; width:33%;"> <img src="img/ruler-short.gif" alt="Ruler demo" style="width:300px; height:auto; display:block;" /> </td> </tr> </table>

---

Beta Research Preview

• Please test this version carefully in your environment
• Report issues at https://github.com/intellectronica/ruler/issues

Why Ruler?

Managing instructions across multiple AI coding tools becomes complex as your team grows. Different agents (GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, Aider, etc.) require their own configuration files, leading to:

• Inconsistent guidance across AI tools
• Duplicated effort maintaining multiple config files
• Context drift as project requirements evolve
• Onboarding friction for new AI tools
• Complex project structures requiring context-specific instructions for different components

Ruler solves this by providing a single source of truth for all your AI agent instructions, automatically distributing them to the right configuration files. With support for nested rule loading, Ruler can handle complex project structures with context-specific instructions for different components.

Core Features

• Centralised Rule Management: Store all AI instructions in a dedicated .ruler/ directory using Markdown files
• Nested Rule Loading: Support complex project structures with multiple .ruler/ directories for context-specific instructions
• Automatic Distribution: Ruler applies these rules to configuration files of supported AI agents
• Targeted Agent Configuration: Fine-tune which agents are affected and their specific output paths via ruler.toml
• MCP Server Propagation: Manage and distribute Model Context Protocol (MCP) server settings
• .gitignore Automation: Keeps generated agent config files out of version control automatically
• Simple CLI: Easy-to-use commands for initialisin...