Code Guidelines

CodeRabbit automatically detects coding guideline files such as .cursorrules, CLAUDE.md, and AGENTS.md in your repository and applies them as review criteria—no extra configuration required.

CodeRabbit scans your repository for well-known AI coding assistant configuration files and uses their content as review criteria. If your team already writes instructions for tools like Cursor, Claude, or Windsurf, CodeRabbit picks those up automatically and enforces the same standards during code review.

Supported files

The following file patterns are detected by default:

File pattern	Associated tool
**/AGENTS.md	AI agent instructions
**/.cursorrules	Cursor
.github/copilot-instructions.md	GitHub Copilot
.github/instructions/*.instructions.md	GitHub Copilot (scoped instructions)
**/CLAUDE.md	Claude Code
**/GEMINI.md	Gemini CLI
**/.cursor/rules/*	Cursor (rules directory)
**/.windsurfrules	Windsurf
**/.clinerules/*	Cline
**/.rules/*	Generic team rules
**/AGENT.md	AI agent instructions

File names are case-sensitive. A file named claude.md is not matched by the **/CLAUDE.md pattern.

How scoping works

A guideline file applies to the directory it lives in and all of its subdirectories. CodeRabbit does not apply guidelines from one part of your repository tree to unrelated paths.

Examples:

• CLAUDE.md at the repository root → applies to all files
• src/frontend/CLAUDE.md → applies only to files under src/frontend/
• src/backend/.cursorrules → applies only to files under src/backend/

This directory-scoped behaviour means you can maintain separate, purpose-fit guidelines for different areas of a monorepo without them interfering with each other.

Guidelines in a documentation or tooling directory will not affect code review unless the code files you are reviewing live inside that same directory tree.

A common mistake is adding guideline file names (for example CLAUDE.md) to path_instructions. This tells CodeRabbit to review those files as changed code, not to use them as guidelines. Use filePatterns instead (see below), or rely on auto-detection.

Managing applied guidelines

The CodeRabbit UI shows the coding guidelines that were applied during the latest reviews for a repository. Repository admins with write access can edit or trash applied guideline rows for future reviews of that repository.

• Click the pencil icon on a guideline row to edit its path pattern or instruction text. The edit changes what CodeRabbit applies in future reviews for that repository, but it leaves the original guideline document unchanged.
• Use Reset to original on an edited guideline to discard the repository-level edit and apply the original rendered guideline text again.
• Select one or more applied guideline rows and click Trash selected to stop those rendered guidelines from being applied in future reviews.

Trashing a guideline does not delete the source guideline file from your repository. It suppresses the rendered path pattern and instruction text that CodeRabbit applied for that repository. If the source guideline changes enough to render as a different instruction, it can appear again as a new applied guideline.

To turn off code guidelines entirely for a repository, set knowledge_base.code_guidelines.enabled to false.

Adding custom file patterns

If your team stores coding standards in files that are not in the default list, you can extend the detected patterns by setting knowledge_base.code_guidelines.filePatterns in your .coderabbit.yaml.

Custom patterns are added on top of the defaults—they do not replace them.

.coderabbit.yaml

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://coderabbit.ai/integrations/schema.v2.json
knowledge_base:
  code_guidelines:
    filePatterns:
      - "**/CODING_STANDARDS.md"
      - "**/docs/style-guide.md"
      - "**/.teamrules"

Glob patterns follow the same syntax used elsewhere in CodeRabbit configuration. The ** wildcard matches any number of path segments.

Configuration reference

.coderabbit.yaml

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://coderabbit.ai/integrations/schema.v2.json
knowledge_base:
  code_guidelines:
    enabled: true
    filePatterns:
      - "**/CODING_STANDARDS.md"

Field	Type	Default	Description
enabled	boolean	true	Apply coding guideline files as review criteria. Set to false to disable auto-detection entirely.
filePatterns	array of strings	[]	Additional glob patterns for guideline files. Supplements the built-in defaults; does not replace them. File names are case-sensitive.

Setting filePatterns to an empty list ([]) keeps the default patterns active. To disable code guidelines entirely, set enabled: false.

What’s next

Knowledge base overview

Learn about all knowledge base capabilities: learnings, code guidelines, and linked repositories.

Learnings

Teach CodeRabbit your team’s review preferences through natural conversation.

Configuration reference

Full reference for all knowledge_base configuration options.