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everything-claude vs Cursor Native Rules

A comparison for developers choosing between Cursor's built-in rules system and everything-claude.

Overview

Feature everything-claude Cursor .cursorrules
Portability Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, Codex Cursor only
Rule organization Modular files per language/framework Single file or per-directory
Skills system Yes — reusable prompt libraries No
Commands Slash commands /build, /audit No built-in slash commands
Agents Pre-configured specialized agents No
Hooks Lifecycle automation No
Templates Ready-to-copy project starters No
Sharing Install script, GitHub Copy .cursorrules file
Context limit Modular — load only what's needed Single file grows unbounded

Cursor Rules: What They Are

Cursor supports two rule formats:

  1. .cursorrules in project root (legacy)
  2. .cursor/rules/*.mdc files (new format, supports glob matching)

The new format lets you write rules that apply only to matching files:

---
globs: ["**/*.py"]
---
Use snake_case for all Python identifiers.

Feature Comparison in Depth

Modularity

Cursor: Each .mdc file can be scoped to file patterns. Multiple files are supported.

everything-claude: Rules are also modular, but organized by language and type. The install script places them in ~/.claude/rules/ for global use or project-specific use.

Both are comparable here.

Skills

Cursor: No native skill/library system. You can write detailed rules, but they're always active — you can't invoke a skill on demand.

everything-claude: Skills are invoked when needed:

Using the security-audit skill, check my auth flow.

Skills don't consume context unless referenced.

Context efficiency

Cursor: Long .cursorrules files consume tokens on every request.

everything-claude: Rules and skills are modular — only load what's relevant to the current file or task.

Hooks

Cursor: No hook system.

everything-claude: Hooks run before/after file writes, on session start, and on session end. Useful for logging, validation, or consistency checks.

When to use Cursor rules

  • You only use Cursor
  • You want rules that activate automatically based on file type
  • Your team shares a .cursor/rules/ directory in the repo
  • Lightweight setup — no install script needed

When to use everything-claude

  • You use Claude Code, Claude.ai, or other Claude-based tools alongside Cursor
  • You want deep skills for building products (SaaS, Chrome extensions)
  • You want lifecycle hooks for automation
  • You want everything versioned in one portable kit

Migration Guide: Cursor rules → everything-claude

If you have existing .cursorrules content, you can move it directly:

# For global Python rules
cp .cursorrules ~/.claude/rules/python/general.md

# For project-specific rules
cp .cursorrules .claude/rules/project.md

The format is the same — plain Markdown. everything-claude just adds organization, skills, and hooks on top.