Rule Modules Overview¶
Rule modules are the behavioral instructions spellbook installs into your coding
assistant. Each module is a separate file under rules/, delivered as a symlink
on harnesses that read a rules directory and as a generated bundle on harnesses
that read a single instruction file.
Mandatory modules install on every platform. Optional modules are offered during
installation and recorded under the rules.module.<id> config keys, so a module
you decline is never reinstalled and a module added later is offered once.
Available Rule Modules¶
| Module | Class | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Spellbook Core | mandatory | What spellbook is, how paths resolve, what runs at session start, and the shared vocabulary every other rule module assumes. |
| Session Context | optional (default on) | The project-knowledge offer protocol: AGENTS.md reading, fleshing out, and per-directory extensions. |
| Orchestration and Subagent Dispatch | mandatory | You conduct rather than implement: how substantive work is delegated to subagents, how model and effort are matched to a task, and how skills execute. |
| Intent Routing | mandatory | How a user's expressed wish about functionality routes to a skill, and why planning happens inside the develop skill rather than in the harness planner. |
| Develop Skill Discipline | optional (default on) | Phase non-fungibility inside the develop skill, and the thoroughness contract that invoking develop establishes. |
| Verification Discipline | mandatory | Why a success signal is not evidence that a step ran, and how to verify the artifact a step should have produced instead of its exit status. |
| Git Safety | mandatory | Which git and session operations require explicit permission, and which content is never allowed to reach an executing tool or a shared workflow state. |
| AI Attribution Suppression | optional (default on) | Suppresses AI attribution in commits, pull requests, issues, and comments. |
| Diff and Branch Semantics | mandatory | How the merge target and merge base are detected, and how the diff endpoint is chosen for the task at hand. |
| Autonomous Mode | optional (default on) | How the agent behaves when it is running without turn-by-turn confirmation. |
| Code Quality | optional (default on) | The standing quality bar for produced code, the comment discipline that keeps stale claims out of source files, and the rule against silently skipping pre-existing issues. |
| Testing Discipline | optional (default on) | How many test commands run at once and how test scope is matched to change scope. |
| File Reading | optional (default on) | Sizing a file or command output before reading it, the ban on truncating reads, and why a negative search result is evidence only when its tool is named. |
| Python Conventions | optional (default on) | Import placement convention for Python code. |
| Agent Role | mandatory | The standing persona every skill inherits rather than restating. |
| Core Philosophy | mandatory | The standing dispositions that govern how a solution is chosen: verify before trusting, dig rather than retreat, preserve behavior, and prefer correctness to speed. |
| Communication | optional (default on) | How questions reach the user, and the expected tone for prose the agent writes. |
| Worktrees | optional (default on) | Isolation between a worktree and its main checkout, the worktree location convention, and the requirement that git commands run from the worktree path. |
| Pull Request Conventions | optional (default on) | How a repository's pull request template is discovered and applied, and which sections never appear in a pull request body. |
| Opportunity Awareness | optional (default on) | Self-monitoring for reusable artifact candidates and project knowledge gaps at natural pause points. |