There is a second trap lurking one step past the leak you documented. Given "CLAUDE.md files are always applied to every conversation, regardless of any alwaysApply frontmatter setting," consider the repo that maintains AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md as near-duplicates for cross-tool compatibility, which is a common pattern: Cursor now loads both, so the project pays double context for the same content and, worse, the two copies drift until the agent receives two subtly conflicting versions of the same convention with no defined winner. The fix follows from your own table: one file as the source of truth and, if both names must exist, a symlink rather than a copy. Appreciated that every claim here carries a doc quote dated today; in a topic where most posts describe a version of Cursor that no longer exists, that discipline is the actual product.
There is a second trap lurking one step past the leak you documented. Given "CLAUDE.md files are always applied to every conversation, regardless of any alwaysApply frontmatter setting," consider the repo that maintains AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md as near-duplicates for cross-tool compatibility, which is a common pattern: Cursor now loads both, so the project pays double context for the same content and, worse, the two copies drift until the agent receives two subtly conflicting versions of the same convention with no defined winner. The fix follows from your own table: one file as the source of truth and, if both names must exist, a symlink rather than a copy. Appreciated that every claim here carries a doc quote dated today; in a topic where most posts describe a version of Cursor that no longer exists, that discipline is the actual product.