manage-rules

Manage Rules

Read, audit, and toggle the rules in the project's live-rules file without changing what any of them say. For authoring or editing rule content, use the add-rule skill. The full format is documented in ../add-rule/references/rule-format.md.

Find the rules file

All rules live in one Markdown file. Resolve it in this order:

1. If LIVE_RULES_PATH is set (commonly in .claude/settings.json under env), that path is the file (project-relative, absolute, or ~-relative).
2. Otherwise it is .claude/live-rules.md at the project root.

If the file does not exist, there are no rules yet; point the user at add-rule to create the first one.

How to read the file

The file is a sequence of rule sections. Each rule is a frontmatter block between --- fences followed by its body, and the next --- begins the next rule. Anything before the first fence is a title or intro and is ignored. Parse each section's frontmatter to get its scope, priority, and enabled state; the body is the instruction text.

Tasks

List the rules

Parse every section and present a compact table (use the description as the rule's name, falling back to its position in the file):

Rule	Scope	Fires when	Priority	Enabled
House style	global	every prompt	0	yes
React component conventions	glob	editing **/*.tsx	0	yes
API layer rules	dir	editing under packages/api	0	yes
Deploy checklist	prompt	prompt matches deploy	0	yes
Strict lint gate	glob	editing **/*.ts	0	no

Derive the scope the same way the hooks do: no scope fields means global; otherwise list whichever of globs / dirs / prompt are present. A rule can have more than one scope. If a rule also declares include:, note it (e.g. "+ includes .claude/.codebase-info/INDEX.md"); include: is a payload, not a scope, so a rule with only include: is still global.

Audit the rules

Check each rule and report concrete issues (name the rule by its description):

• Broken or empty frontmatter that the parser would skip (e.g. an unterminated [...], a missing closing ---, no body at all).
• A stray --- line inside a body, which the parser reads as the next rule's fence and which will silently split or merge rules. Suggest replacing it with *** or ___.
• Globs that match nothing in the repo: compile the glob and test it against the tracked files (git ls-files, or a recursive listing minus the usual noise dirs). A glob matching zero files is probably a typo or a stale path.
• Invalid prompt regexes (/.../flags that does not compile).
• An include: target that does not exist: resolve each include path (project-relative, or absolute / ~-relative) and check the file is there. A rule whose includes are all missing is silently dropped and injects nothing, so a broken path means the rule never fires. Flag it.
• Duplicates / conflicts: two rules giving contradictory instructions, or near-identical rules that should be merged.
• Oversized rules: a body long enough to crowd the ~10k-char injection budget. Suggest trimming or splitting.
• Over-broad global rules that would be better scoped (a *.tsx-only instruction living as a global rule, so it hits every unrelated prompt).

Summarize findings as a short list of "rule: problem, suggested fix". Only change the file if the user asks; add-rule is the right tool for rewrites.

Enable or disable a rule

Toggle a rule without deleting it: find its section, set enabled: true or enabled: false in that section's frontmatter (add the field if it is absent), and save. Leave the other sections untouched. The change takes effect on the next prompt or edit. Confirm which rule you toggled and its new state.

Explain what is active

Given a situation ("for a normal prompt", "when I edit src/app/page.tsx", "when I say 'deploy'"), walk the rules and report which ones would be injected and why, mirroring the hook logic:

• On a prompt: global rules, plus prompt rules whose pattern matches the text, plus dir rules whose directory contains the session's working dir.
• Before an edit to a file: glob rules matching that file (gitignore-style: a slash-free pattern matches at any depth; a pattern with / is repo-anchored), plus dir rules whose directory contains it. Global and prompt rules do not fire on edits.

A rule that carries include: only fires if at least one of its included files exists; if they are all missing it is dropped, so factor that in when explaining why a rule did or did not appear.

This is the fastest way to answer "why did Claude just follow rule X" or "why didn't it".

Guidelines

• Read-and-toggle, not rewrite. This skill lists, audits, and flips enabled. Send content changes to add-rule.
• Edit surgically. When toggling one rule, change only that section's frontmatter; do not reflow or reorder the rest of the file.
• Verify before claiming. When you say a glob matches nothing, actually test it against the repo file list first.
• Never touch CLAUDE.md. Rules live only in the live-rules file.
• After any change, remind the user to commit the live-rules file so the team stays in sync.

Success criteria

• Rules listed with scope, trigger, priority, and enabled state
• Audit reports real, rule-specific issues (globs tested against actual files)
• Any enable/disable change applied to the right section only and confirmed
• CLAUDE.md left untouched