Rule Inheritance

Rulebound supports rule inheritance so teams can share a base set of rules across multiple projects while allowing each project to customize or override specific rules.

How It Works

In .rulebound/config.json, the extends array specifies paths to parent rule sets:

{
  "extends": [
    "../shared-rules/.rulebound/rules",
    "@company/engineering-rules"
  ],
  "rulesDir": ".rulebound/rules"
}

Rulebound loads rules in this order:

Inherited rules from each extends path (in order)
Local rules from rulesDir

Local rules override inherited rules with the same ID. This lets you customize specific rules for a project while keeping the rest from the shared set.

Path Resolution

Extends paths are resolved in this order:

Path Type	Example	Resolution
Relative	`../shared/.rulebound/rules`	Resolved from project root
Absolute	`/opt/rules/company`	Used as-is
Package	`@company/rules`	`node_modules/@company/rules/rules` or `node_modules/@company/rules/.rulebound/rules`

Example: Shared Company Rules

Create a shared rules package:

@company/engineering-rules/
  .rulebound/
    rules/
      security/
        no-secrets.md
        input-validation.md
      style/
        naming.md

In each project:

{
  "extends": ["@company/engineering-rules"],
  "rulesDir": ".rulebound/rules"
}

Overriding Rules

If a local rule has the same ID as an inherited rule, the local version wins. Rule IDs are derived from file paths:

# Inherited from @company/rules
security.no-secrets  (from security/no-secrets.md)

# Local override
security.no-secrets  (from .rulebound/rules/security/no-secrets.md)

The local security/no-secrets.md replaces the inherited one entirely.

Inherited Rule Display

When listing rules, inherited rules are prefixed with [inherited]:

rulebound rules list

  [ERROR] [MUST] No Hardcoded Secrets
    [inherited] security/no-secrets.md

  [WARNING] [SHOULD] Naming Conventions
    style/naming.md

Multi-Level Inheritance

You can chain inheritance across multiple levels, but each level only looks at its own extends. Rulebound does not recursively resolve inherited configs.

Best Practices

Keep shared rules focused on universal standards (security, error handling)
Let project rules handle stack-specific or team-specific standards
Use consistent file paths across projects so rule IDs match for overrides
Publish shared rules as npm packages for easy version management