Rule Reference

Rule reference

Rules are markdown files the agent reads. The ones marked every session are a permanent context cost on every request; the path-scoped ones enter the window only when a matching file is touched.

That distinction is the whole context budget: 62% of rule content stays out of the default session because 9 of the 16 rules are path-scoped.

Rule	Loading	Installed	Covers
00-overview	every session	always	Overview
agent-guardrails	every session	always	Agent guardrails
ai-governance	every session	always	AI governance
code-quality	path-scoped	always	Code quality
conventional-commits	every session	always	Conventional commits
data-model	path-scoped	needs db	Data model
ddd	path-scoped	needs ddd	Domain-driven design
docs-workflow	path-scoped	always	Docs workflow
frontend	path-scoped	needs ui	Frontend
ip-compliance	path-scoped	always	Intellectual property
model-policy	every session	always	Model policy
output-style	every session	needs terse	Output style
performance	path-scoped	always	Performance
security-privacy	path-scoped	always	Security and privacy
task-tracking	every session	always	Task tracking
testing	path-scoped	needs tests	Testing

Why this matters more than it looks

A rule that matches no file in your repository is not free. It is a tax on every request, forever. harness-view assess reports a rule with no matching path as a finding for exactly that reason.