Rules

Rules are used to provide instructions to the model for Chat, Edit, and Agent requests.

Rules are not included in most other requests, such as autocomplete or apply.

You can view the current rules by clicking the pen icon above the main toolbar:

To form the system message, rules are joined with new lines, in the order they appear in the toolbar. This includes the base chat system message (see below).

rules blocks

Rules can be added to an Assistant on the Continue Hub. Explore available rules here, or create your own in the Hub. These blocks are defined using the config.yaml syntax and can also be created locally.

Automatically create local rule blocks

When in Agent mode, you can simply prompt the agent to create a rule for you.

For example, you can say "Create a rule for this", and a rule will be created for you in ~/.continue/rules based on your conversation.

Syntax

Rules blocks can be simple text, or have the following properties:

• name (required): A display name/title for the rule
• rule (required): The text content of the rule
• globs (optional): When files are provided as context that match this glob pattern, the rule will be included. This can be either a single pattern (e.g., "**/*.{ts,tsx}") or an array of patterns (e.g., ["src/**/*.ts", "tests/**/*.ts"]).

config.yaml

rules:
  - Always annotate Python functions with their parameter and return types

  - name: TypeScript best practices
    rule: Always use TypeScript interfaces to define shape of objects. Use type aliases sparingly.
    globs: "**/*.{ts,tsx}"

  - name: TypeScript test patterns
    rule: In TypeScript tests, use Jest's describe/it pattern and follow best practices for mocking.
    globs:
      - "src/**/*.test.ts"
      - "tests/**/*.ts"

  - uses: myprofile/my-mood-setter
    with:
      TONE: concise

Chat System Message

Continue includes a simple default system message for Chat and Agent requests, to help the model provide reliable codeblock formats in its output.

This can be viewed in the rules section of the toolbar (see above), or visit the source code here

Advanced users can override this system message for a specific model if needed by using chatOptions.baseSystemMessage. See the config.yaml reference.

.continuerules

You can create project-specific rules by adding a .continuerules file to the root of your project. This file is raw text and its full contents will be used as rules.

Simple Examples

• If you want concise answers:

Please provide concise answers. Don't explain obvious concepts. You can assume that I am knowledgable about most programming topics.

• If you want to ensure certain practices are followed, for example in React:

Whenever you are writing React code, make sure to
- use functional components instead of class components
- use hooks for state management
- define an interface for your component props
- use Tailwind CSS for styling
- modularize components into smaller, reusable pieces