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Cline integrates Well-Architected guidance through a .clinerules file — Cline’s native mechanism for persistent agent instructions. The file establishes your AI assistant as an AWS Well-Architected advisor, applies all six pillars to every architecture conversation, and routes structured assessment requests to the appropriate skill playbook in the skills/ directory.

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What gets installed

.clinerules    ← always-on WA steering and skill routing
The .clinerules file contains:
  • Role definition — sets the agent as an AWS Well-Architected advisor
  • Six-pillar definitions — Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimization, and Sustainability
  • Design principles — managed services preference, failure design, least-privilege access, IaC, observability
  • Trade-off guidance — explicit acknowledgement of security/latency, cost/availability, and portability trade-offs
  • Skill routing — references the skills/ directory so Cline can follow step-by-step playbooks on demand

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Installation

1

Copy .clinerules into your project root

cp path/to/this-repo/adapters/cline/.clinerules ./.clinerules
Or use the install script from a local clone:
./install.sh ~/my-project --tool cline
2

Verify the file is in place

Confirm .clinerules exists at the root of your project:
ls -la .clinerules
3

Test the integration

Open a Cline conversation in your project directory and ask a design question. The agent should apply WA principles and reference specific pillars.
What Well-Architected pillars should I consider for this architecture?

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Usage

Cline loads .clinerules automatically at the start of every session, so WA principles are active immediately. For structured deep-dive assessments, ask Cline to follow the relevant skill playbook: 
Run a Well-Architected review of this codebase.
To get the full structured playbook experience, copy the skills/ directory alongside .clinerules. The skill routing in .clinerules references skills/{skill-name}/SKILL.md, so Cline can read and follow the step-by-step instructions when asked.
cp path/to/this-repo/adapters/cline/.clinerules ./.clinerules
cp -r path/to/this-repo/skills ./skills
.clinerules is project-scoped and applies to all Cline conversations opened in that workspace. If you want WA guidance across all projects, use the global install flag:
./install.sh --global --tool cline

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