Project Rules

Project rules let the AI auto-observe and remember behavioral conventions specific to your project. Instead of manually reminding the agent how you want things done, rules are saved to .clew/rules.json and injected into the system prompt on every session — no setup needed.

How it works

Rules are stored in <repo>/.clew/rules.json:

{
  "rules": [
    "Use `node:` prefix for built-in module imports",
    "Prefer `async/await` over raw Promises",
    "Write tests in Vitest, not Jest"
  ],
  "disabled": false
}

The AI automatically saves rules when it notices a repeated behavioral pattern. Rules are injected into the system prompt at the start of every session so the agent follows them from the first turn.

Commands

Command	Description
/rule	Show current project rules
/rule add <rule>	Add a new rule
/rule edit <index> <rule>	Edit a rule by index
/rule remove <index>	Remove a rule by index
/rule off	Disable rules (suppress injection without deleting them)
/rule on	Re-enable disabled rules

AI tool

The ProjectRule tool (action: save | list | remove) lets the AI manage rules autonomously:

• save — Save a new rule (auto-deduplicated)
• list — List all active rules
• remove — Remove a rule by index

Status indicator

When rules are active, a count shows in the status footer:

3R   clew-code   main   /model deepseek-v4

This means 3 rules are currently loaded.

Toggling

Use /rule off to temporarily suppress rules without losing them. Use /rule on to re-enable. Rules disabled this way stay disabled across sessions until toggled back on.

File location

<project-root>/.clew/rules.json

Old format (plain array of strings) is still supported — the system auto-migrates on read.