This page explains how to use the Karpathy-inspired behavioral guidelines in Cursor. TheDocumentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/multica-ai/andrej-karpathy-skills/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
andrej-karpathy-skills repository includes a committed Cursor project rule — .cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc — so the same four principles that govern Claude Code behavior apply automatically whenever you open the project in Cursor, without any extra setup.
Set up in this repository
Open the folder in Cursor
Open the
andrej-karpathy-skills repository folder in Cursor as you would any project. No additional installation is needed.The rule is already committed
The file
.cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc is committed to the repository with alwaysApply: true. Cursor picks it up automatically when the folder is open.When a rule has
alwaysApply: true, Cursor injects it into every agent and chat context within the project without you needing to reference it manually. You will never have to remember to attach it.Use the guidelines in another project
To bring the same behavioral guidelines into a different codebase, copy the committed rule file into that project.- Cursor (recommended)
- Other tools
Copy Adjust or merge the rule with any existing rules in that directory. Commit the file so the rule travels with the project for all contributors.
.cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc into the target project’s .cursor/rules/ directory. Create the folders if they do not exist.Optional: personal Agent Skills
If you want the guidelines available as a reusable personal skill across all your projects — not just ones where you copy the rule file — use the~/.cursor/skills/ approach.
The repository includes skills/karpathy-guidelines/SKILL.md. Copy or symlink it into your personal Cursor skills directory:
Claude Code vs Cursor
The guidelines are the same in both tools, but the delivery mechanism differs:| Claude Code | Cursor | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary method | Plugin marketplace or CLAUDE.md in project root | Committed .cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc |
Reads CLAUDE.md | Yes, by default | No — Cursor does not read CLAUDE.md automatically |
Reads .cursor/rules/ | No | Yes — loaded automatically when alwaysApply: true |
| Per-project install | Copy CLAUDE.md to project | Copy .mdc file to .cursor/rules/ |
| Personal/global install | Plugin marketplace installation | Copy skill to ~/.cursor/skills/ |
CLAUDE.md and .cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc so each editor picks up its own format.
For contributors
When you update the four principles, keep the following files in sync manually — there is no automated check:CLAUDE.md— read by Claude Code.cursor/rules/karpathy-guidelines.mdc— read by Cursorskills/karpathy-guidelines/SKILL.md— used as a personal reusable skill