Pathrule

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Your AI forgets. Pathrule remembers.

The open-source knowledge layer for coding agents. Pathrule keeps what your project has learned as memories, rules and skills scoped to paths in your code, and gives Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and Windsurf only what the task in front of them needs, before they act.

PathruleBench, 2,000 items: 55% lower cost a chain · 2.7× fewer input tokens · 97% of memory probes passed · the numbers

Website · Docs · Quickstart · Benchmarks · Smarter over time · Changelog

Same request, same agent. On the right, Pathrule's hook hands over the three notes filed for apps/web/dashboard before the agent writes a line.

Works with Claude Code · Codex · Cursor · GitHub Copilot · Windsurf · any MCP client

Quickstart

Node.js 22.14.0 or newer, on macOS, Linux or Windows.

npm i -g @pathrule/cli

pathrule setup --local # no account: knowledge stays on this machine pathrule doctor # see what each agent receives

Restart your agent. From the next session on, it gets the notes for the path it is about to touch, and writes new ones as it works.

Explain it once

Coding agents start every session blank. So the same correction comes back, day after day, agent after agent:

Five sessions, three agents, nothing remembered. With Pathrule you say it once:

1. You fix it once, the way you normally would.
2. Pathrule files it next to the code it is about: a memory on features/, not a line in a file every session has to read.
3. Every agent knows from the next session on, whichever one you open.

Only what matters

A workspace collects hundreds of notes. An agent editing features/orders needs four of them.

Knowledge is matched by path, scope and relevance, then fit to a per-prompt budget. Enforced rules are never cut for space. Whatever does not fit is listed by title, so the agent can ask for it. When a prompt names a function or a type, the hook also points the agent to the file and line where it is defined (JS/TS, Python, Go).

Three kinds of knowledge

Three ways in

Why not just CLAUDE.md?

A CLAUDE.md file is read whole on every step, so every note your team adds makes every session cost more. Pathrule sends each prompt only what the path and the task need. PathruleBench measured the difference with the same agent, the same prompts and the same hidden checks, from 500 to 2,000 items of team knowledge.

From 500 to 2,000 items, a chain with CLAUDE.md costs 89–98% more. With Pathrule it moves between −1% and +10%. Your knowledge base can grow; the bill does not.

Claude Code with claude-sonnet-5-5 in Python, Go and TypeScript; nine chains an arm at 2,000 items (three per language); executable tests decide every pass, no model judges. The Pathrule arm is this repository's open-source CLI in local mode: no Cloud, no model.

[Every condition, chain and check, and how to run it yourself → pathrule/benchmark](https://github.com/pathrule/benchmark)

Smarter the longer you use it.

Day one needs no account, no network and no model. Everything after builds on what you and your agents already did in this repository.

| Day 0 Foundation | Hooks and the local MCP server are wired into your agents. What you write is delivered per path, within a budget, through the hooks and Claude Code's path-scoped rules; your own CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md are left as they are. | Open source, this machine | | Week 1 Memory | A decision you state in a prompt (“from now on…”, “we decided…”) is saved in your own words. A lesson a failing command taught is saved once. Each note is filed next to the code it is about, and only new or changed context is sent again. | Open source, this machine | | Month 1 Your habits | A preference you state lives in a local file of your own. Said once in passing, it waits; said again in another session, it reaches every agent. One you call lasting is in force at once. A project rule always wins over a personal one. | Open source, this machine | | Month 3 At scale | Thousands of notes, and a session stays the same size: the root rules file stays around 6k characters and the rest arrives per prompt. A sentence that says where code lives is marked (as of writing), so when a teammate moves the file the agent follows the code. When an edit writes a value a newer decision replaced, the hook quotes the decision at that edit. | Open source, this machine | | When you choose Team | The same knowledge on every machine and for every member. For a Cloud workspace, a model also reads the prompts Pathrule's phrase rules found nothing in and keeps the sentence you meant to last, still in your words. It is paid from AI Credits. | Pathrule Cloud, opt-in |

No model runs on your machine. Everything before Team is the open-source CLI, the same path the benchmark above measured.

Switch agents. Keep the knowledge.

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