Project Structure

After running rulebound init, your project will contain these Rulebound files:

your-project/
  .rulebound/
    config.json          # Project configuration
    rules/
      global/
        example-rule.md  # Starter rule
      security/          # Organize by category
        no-secrets.md
      style/
        naming.md
  .git/
    hooks/
      pre-commit         # Auto-installed hook

Directory Layout

Path	Purpose
`.rulebound/`	Root directory for all Rulebound configuration
`.rulebound/config.json`	Project config (stack, scope, team, extends, enforcement)
`.rulebound/rules/`	Your rule files, organized by category subdirectories

Rule Organization

Rules are markdown files with YAML front matter. You can organize them however you like inside .rulebound/rules/:

.rulebound/rules/
  global/           # Rules that apply to all code
    error-handling.md
    naming.md
  security/         # Security-specific rules
    no-secrets.md
    input-validation.md
  testing/          # Testing standards
    coverage.md
    test-naming.md
  architecture/     # Architecture decisions
    api-patterns.md

Subdirectory names are used as the default category for rules that do not set one explicitly in their front matter.

Rule IDs

Each rule gets an automatic ID derived from its file path relative to the rules directory:

File Path	Rule ID
`global/error-handling.md`	`global.error-handling`
`security/no-secrets.md`	`security.no-secrets`
`testing/coverage.md`	`testing.coverage`

These IDs are used for inheritance overrides -- if a local rule has the same ID as an inherited rule, the local rule takes precedence.

Generated Files

When you run rulebound generate, agent config files are created in your project root:

File	Agent
`CLAUDE.md`	Claude Code
`.cursor/rules.md`	Cursor
`.github/copilot-instructions.md`	GitHub Copilot

Commit these files so your AI agents automatically pick up your rules.

Monorepo Structure

The Rulebound platform itself is organized as a Turborepo monorepo:

rulebound/
  packages/
    cli/             # @rulebound/cli - Command-line interface
    engine/          # @rulebound/engine - Validation pipeline, AST
    shared/          # @rulebound/shared - Shared types
    gateway/         # @rulebound/gateway - HTTP proxy gateway
    lsp/             # @rulebound/lsp - Language Server Protocol
    mcp/             # @rulebound/mcp - Model Context Protocol
  apps/
    web/             # Documentation and marketing site
  examples/
    rules/           # Example rule sets