How to use .avanterules

[craigdallimore]

What an amazing plugin. Thank you so much for this.

I'm fascinated by .avanterules, I'm guessing that these are a way to direct the system to obey certain rules. But I'm not sure how to get started with them. I tried adding one that told it to say the word "flamingo" during a chat as a sort of "hello world", but there was no effect.

• What are good examples of avanterules?
• What features do they expose?
• Do they/should they link to each other?
• What is the motivation for producing this feature?

[MrJadaml]

I would also like to get a better idea of how to make use of avante rules. I would like to do things like this:
https://youtu.be/1L509JK8p1I?si=ytH1P7lQLn5K5IN-&t=398

[michaelwoelk]

I’m curious too. I want to tell the AI what I like and don’t like. For example, I don’t use Tailwind in React, but code suggestions often include it. I’d rather specify which framework we use instead or say “don’t use useEffect,” and so on.

[bnwa]

I've configured a global rules directory and placed a file formatting.planning.avanterules in it that appears to have no effect. Originally it was pure markdown until I saw found this initial discussion then re-read the README around rules which indicated it was a Jinja template. So I added initial Jinja elements to extend the current mode prompt as the discussion indicated. However, I notice in the source code in Path.lua that after collecting rules, the Jinja elements are added automatically before and after custom rule content for a given mode. I feel like I've tried every which possible formatting to get this to work but no prompt appears to be populated with my global custom rules around formatting.

I'm guessing, without digging further into the code, that there's some caching going on as well so that prompts aren't re-compiled every time, as well?

At any rate, just as with everyone else here, some clarity around rules usage would be helpful

[bnwa]

OK, so the current README is incorrect. With some good ol print debugging, the problem is that the global rules path I pass to Avante configuration fails the vim.fn.isdirectory check at L229 in path.lua because the path string, as per the README example itself, uses ~ shorthand for the user home directory. This has to be expanded to the absolute path via vim.fn.expand in order to pass that check. Wish I'd noticed this before. Should Avante take responsibility for calling vim.fn.expand there or should the README be updated?

[bnwa]

Great, passing the path string in my Lua config to vim.fn.expand fixes everything and now my global custom avanterules are being properly parsed. I think the README should updated, to remove ambiguity for people who get easily confused or are just skimming like me, to

require('avante').setup({
  rules = {
    project_dir = '.avante/rules', -- relative to project root, can also be an absolute path
    global_dir = vim.fn.expand('~/.config/avante/rules'), -- absolute path
  },
})

in order