Aif Rules

AI Factory Rules - Project Conventions

Add short, actionable rules and conventions for the current project. Rules are saved to the configured RULES.md artifact (default: .ai-factory/RULES.md) and automatically loaded by /aif-implement before task execution.

Rules Hierarchy

AI Factory supports a three-level rules hierarchy:

1. RULES.md - Axioms (universal project rules)

   • Managed by this skill (/aif-rules)
   • Short, flat list of hard requirements
   • Loaded by all skills

2. rules/base.md - Project-specific base conventions

   • Created by /aif during project setup
   • Naming conventions, module boundaries, error handling patterns
   • Auto-detected from codebase analysis

3. rules.<area> - Area-specific conventions

   • Created by this skill (Mode C)
   • Registered in .ai-factory/config.yaml as named keys such as rules.api
   • Area-specific patterns and constraints

Priority: More specific rules win. rules.<area> > rules/base.md > RULES.md

Workflow

Step 0: Load Config

FIRST: Read .ai-factory/config.yaml if it exists to resolve:

• Paths: paths.rules_file and paths.rules
• Language: language.ui for prompts and summaries, language.artifacts for rules artifacts, and language.technical_terms for human-readable technical terminology in rules

If config.yaml doesn't exist, use defaults:

• RULES.md: .ai-factory/RULES.md
• rules/: .ai-factory/rules/
• ui_language: en
• artifact_language: en
• technical_terms_policy: keep

Resolved language values:

• ui_language = language.ui || "en"
• artifact_language = language.artifacts || language.ui || "en"
• technical_terms_policy = language.technical_terms || "keep"

If technical_terms_policy is not one of keep, translate, or mixed, treat it as keep. Legacy values such as english also behave like keep.

All AskUserQuestion prompts, progress updates, confirmations, and next-step guidance MUST be written in ui_language.

Generated or updated rules artifacts under paths.rules_file and paths.rules/<area>.md MUST be written in artifact_language.

Templates and examples define structure, not fixed English output. If artifact_language is not en, translate human-readable headings, notes, rule text, labels, and confirmation prose before saving. Preserve markdown structure, paths, commands, config keys such as rules.<area>, area names, code identifiers, package names, API names, and raw errors unchanged. Apply technical_terms_policy to other human-readable terminology.

Step 0.1: Load Skill Context

Read .ai-factory/skill-context/aif-rules/SKILL.md - MANDATORY if the file exists.

This file contains project-specific rules accumulated by /aif-evolve from patches, codebase conventions, and tech-stack analysis. These rules are tailored to the current project.

How to apply skill-context rules:

• Treat them as project-level overrides for this skill's general instructions
• When a skill-context rule conflicts with a general rule written in this SKILL.md, the skill-context rule wins (more specific context takes priority - same principle as nested CLAUDE.md files)
• When there is no conflict, apply both: general rules from SKILL.md + project rules from skill-context
• Do NOT ignore skill-context rules even if they seem to contradict this skill's defaults - they exist because the project's experience proved the default insufficient
• CRITICAL: skill-context rules apply to ALL outputs of this skill - including the RULES.md format and rule formulation. If a skill-context rule says "rules MUST follow format X" or "RULES.md MUST include section Y" - you MUST comply. Generating rules that violate skill-context is a bug.

Enforcement: After generating any output artifact, verify it against all skill-context rules. If any rule is violated - fix the output before presenting it to the user.

Step 1: Determine Mode

Check $ARGUMENTS:
- Starts with "area:" or "area "? -> Mode C: Area rules
- Has text? -> Mode A: Direct add
- No arguments? -> Mode B: Interactive

Mode A: Direct Add

User provided rule text as argument:

/aif-rules Always use DTO classes instead of arrays

Skip to Step 2 with the provided text as the rule.

Mode B: Interactive

No arguments provided:

/aif-rules

Ask via AskUserQuestion:

What rule or convention would you like to add?

Examples:
- Always use DTO classes instead of arrays for data transfer
- Routes must use kebab-case
- All database queries go through repository classes
- Never use raw SQL, always use the query builder
- Log every external API call with request/response