~ 4 min read
Agent Rules is the Missing Link in AI-Powered Development
How one open source project is hopefully helping you generate more secure code out of your AI agentic coding workflow? Here’s the story of agent-rules.
The Wild West of AI Coding Assistants
Picture this: It’s Monday morning, and you’re switching between GitHub Copilot for your TypeScript project, Cursor for some Python work, and Claude CLI for documentation updates. Each AI assistant suggests different approaches, follows different security practices, and adheres to different coding standards. Sound familiar? Yes I know. I am facing the same challenge.
This fragmented experience isn’t just inconvenient, it’s dangerous. When AI coding assistants lack consistent, secure coding standards, they can inadvertently introduce vulnerabilities, suggest outdated practices, or generate code that doesn’t align with your team’s security requirements.
Enter agent-rules: a unified solution to standardize AI coding assistant behavior across platforms.
And no, it’s not a startup. Not a YC company. Just a humble open source project I am working on in my spare time :-)
Introducing Agent Rules: Your AI’s Coding Conscience
Agent-rules is a game-changing CLI tool for me that generates standardized, security-focused rules for major AI coding assistants. With a simple npx agent-rules command, developers (me included) can ensure their AI tools follow consistent best practices whether they’re using GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude CLI, or Gemini CLI.
The tool addresses a critical gap in the AI-assisted development workflow: the lack of unified governance and security standards across different AI platforms.
Here’s how simple it is:
# Interactive mode - guided setup
npx agent-rules
Alternatively, if you want to go fully automated and script it:
# Command-line mode - automated workflows
npx agent-rules --app github-copilot --topics secure-code --topics testingThe Security Imperative: Why This Matters Now
In times where AI-generated code is becoming ubiquitous, the security implications are staggering. Agent-rules tackles this head-on by leveraging proven security expertise:
- Secure coding practices based on Liran Tal’s authoritative Node.js Secure Coding guide
- Vulnerability scanning and remediation powered by Snyk.io insights
I’ve actually also included testing guidelines because I’m a strong believer that having a testing harness and a good testing strategy is vital for any real-world production codebase:
- Testing strategy guidelines built from Yoni Goldberg’s JavaScript Testing Best Practices
The project’s latest enhancement showcases this security-first approach with comprehensive guidelines for preferring Node.js core APIs over third-party dependencies—reducing attack surface and improving performance.
Developer Experience: From Friction to Flow
Agent-rules transforms AI assistant configuration from a tedious, error-prone process into a streamlined experience. The tool guides you through AI platform selection and topic choices with an intuitive CLI interface powered by @clack/prompts.
Agent-rule is also built with Automation-Readiness in mind, meaning you can easily script it for non-interactive environments. Perfect for CI/CD pipelines and team onboarding scripts.
Current AI coding agent support extends to the following platforms:
| AI Platform | Status |
|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot | ✅ |
| Cursor | ✅ |
| Claude CLI | ✅ |
| Gemini CLI | ✅ |
Roadmap: The Future of AI-Guided Development
The project’s active development roadmap (7 open enhancement issues) reveals exciting upcoming features:
Advanced Platform Integrations
- Gemini CLI Custom Commands (Issue #24): Research and implementation of slash commands
- Claude Code Hooks & Commands (Issues #22, #23): Deep integration with Claude’s extensibility features
- GitHub Copilot Workspace Prompts (Issue #30): Support for
.prompt.mdfile conventions
Enhanced User Experience
- ”Select All” functionality (Issue #25): Streamlined topic selection for power users
- Smart defaults (Issue #26): Security topics enabled by default for faster setup
Modern Development Guidelines
- Node.js modernization rules (Issue #34): Comprehensive mappings from third-party dependencies to core Node.js APIs
Community Impact and Growing Adoption
I’d love to welcome you to try it out and also help contribute and shape the future of this project.
With 24 stars and active community engagement, agent-rules is gaining traction among security-conscious development teams. Recent merged pull requests show consistent maintenance and feature development, including:
- CLI argument support for automation (PR #19)
- Security hardening improvements (PR #27)
- Multi-platform adapter enhancements
The Apache 2.0 license ensures accessibility for both open-source and enterprise use cases.
What’s next for AI a
Agent-rules represents more than a convenience tool—it’s a step toward responsible AI-assisted development. As AI coding assistants become more powerful and prevalent, projects like agent-rules provide the governance framework necessary to ensure these tools enhance rather than compromise code quality and security.
By standardizing AI behavior across platforms, agent-rules empowers development teams to harness AI’s productivity benefits while maintaining the security and quality standards that modern software demands.
Ready to bring consistency to your AI coding workflow? Start with npx agent-rules and join the growing community of developers who refuse to compromise on security in the age of AI.
Agent-rules is an open-source project by Liran Tal, a recognized security expert and author of Node.js Secure Coding. Contribute to the project on GitHub or follow development updates.
