Coding Guidelines¶

SpecMem aggregates coding guidelines from multiple sources into a unified view, making it easy to discover, search, and convert team coding standards between different AI tool formats.

Supported Sources¶

SpecMem detects and parses guidelines from:

Source	File	Description
Claude	`CLAUDE.md`	Claude Code project context file
Cursor	`.cursorrules`	Cursor AI rules file
Kiro	`.kiro/steering/*.md`	Kiro steering files
Agents	`AGENTS.md`	Generic agent instructions

Viewing Guidelines¶

Web Dashboard¶

Launch the dashboard and navigate to the Guidelines view:

specmem demo

The Guidelines view shows:

All guidelines grouped by source
Filter buttons for each source type
Search across title and content
Click any guideline to see full content

CLI¶

List all guidelines:

specmem guidelines

Filter by source:

specmem guidelines --source claude
specmem guidelines --source cursor
specmem guidelines --source steering

Search guidelines:

specmem guidelines --search "testing"
specmem guidelines --search "error handling"

Show guidelines for a specific file:

specmem guidelines --file src/auth.py

View full content of a guideline:

specmem guidelines show <guideline-id>

Converting Guidelines¶

Convert guidelines between formats to share with team members using different tools.

Supported Formats¶

steering - Kiro steering files (.kiro/steering/*.md)
claude - CLAUDE.md format
cursor - .cursorrules format

Single Guideline¶

Preview conversion:

specmem guidelines convert <id> steering
specmem guidelines convert <id> claude
specmem guidelines convert <id> cursor

Write the converted file:

specmem guidelines convert <id> steering --no-preview

Bulk Conversion¶

Convert all guidelines to a format:

# Preview
specmem guidelines convert-all steering
specmem guidelines convert-all claude
specmem guidelines convert-all cursor

# Write files
specmem guidelines convert-all steering --no-preview

Convert only from a specific source:

specmem guidelines convert-all steering --source claude

Web UI Conversion¶

Click on a guideline card to open the detail modal
Click "Convert to..." dropdown
Select target format (Kiro Steering, CLAUDE.md, or .cursorrules)
Preview the converted content

JSON Output for AI Agents¶

Use --robot flag for machine-readable output:

specmem guidelines --robot
specmem guidelines --source claude --robot
specmem guidelines show <id> --robot

API Endpoints¶

Guidelines are also available via the REST API:

# List guidelines
GET /api/guidelines
GET /api/guidelines?source=claude
GET /api/guidelines?q=testing

# Convert guideline
POST /api/guidelines/convert
{
  "guideline_id": "abc123",
  "format": "steering",  # or "claude", "cursor"
  "preview": true
}

Sample Guidelines¶

When no real guidelines are found, SpecMem provides sample guidelines for demonstration. These are marked with a "Sample" badge in the UI and is_sample: true in the API response.

Best Practices¶

Centralize guidelines - Keep team standards in one format and convert as needed
Use file patterns - Kiro steering files support fileMatchPattern for context-aware rules
Regular sync - Convert guidelines when team members switch tools
Version control - Commit converted guidelines to share with the team