Rules are completely ignored by Continue vscode extension

[George-Const]

Before submitting your bug report

• I've tried using the "Ask AI" feature on the Continue docs site to see if the docs have an answer
• I believe this is a bug. I'll try to join the Continue Discord for questions
• I'm not able to find an open issue that reports the same bug
• I've seen the troubleshooting guide on the Continue Docs

Relevant environment info

- OS:Ubuntu24.04
- Continue version: 1.0.19
- IDE version: VSCode 1.102.3
- Model: All
- config:
  
name: my-configuration
version: 0.0.1
schema: v1
models:
  - name: Devstral2507-lmstudio
    provider: lmstudio
    model: mistralai/devstral-small-2507
    roles:
    - chat
    - edit
    - apply
    capabilities:
    - tool_use

  - name: openrouter-deepseek-chat-v3-0324
    provider: openai
    model: openrouter-deepseek-chat-v3-0324
    apiBase: http://localhost:4000
    roles:
    - chat
    - edit
    - apply
    capabilities:
      - tool_use
  
  OR link to assistant in Continue hub:

Description

• Added rules manualy or using the + Add Rules button from the Continue/Rules extension UI or even allowing the LLM to generate the rule in the .continue/rules folder with .md extensions are completely ignored by continue when sending API requests to llm providers.
• On off toggle for the rule showing under continue/Rules UI seems to not do anything:

Tried renaming the file accordingly but nothing. - Confirmed that only default System messages are being passed to llm providers by checking the litellm proxy logs for example and enabling the Rule with the toggle button . Chat/Plan/Agent mode, it doesn't matter, only the default system message is passed for those specific modes.

To reproduce

1. Go to rules inside continue extension chat mode.
2. Click on + Add Rules button and edit your rule and save.
3. Ensure toggle button is on for the added rule and md files are inside rules folder

$ tree -a 
.... 
.
├── appsettings.json
├── .continue
│   ├── mcpServers
│   │   └── AiCodeGenerator.yaml
│   └── rules
│       ├── llm-code-generation-refactoring-standard.md
│       └── new-rule.md
.....

5. Start chat in any mode
6. Observe that only default system message is passed in CONTINUE CONSOLE

Expectation:
Rule content to be added to system before sending API request to llmprovider.

Log output

Continue Console showing the system prompt passed to llmprovider not containing the rules as expected: 

system
<important_rules>
  You are in agent mode.

  Always include the language and file name in the info string when you write code blocks.
  If you are editing "src/main.py" for example, your code block should start with ' src/main.py'

</important_rules>
user
Hello
assistant
Hello! How can I assist you today?
user
hello

[fbricon]

I confirm rules are not picked up from the .continue/rules directory, even with alwaysApply: true

---
alwaysApply: true
---

Speak like a pirate.

You can set the rule in config.yaml though, as

rules:
  - Speak like a pirate

and it'll be sent to the LLM (I tried with ollama models).

[fbricon]

actually it seems it does pick up alwaysApply: true. So the problem is it doesn't include the rule by default, despite the documentation stating:

alwaysApply: Determines whether the rule is always included. Behavior is described below:
    ...
    - undefined (default behavior): Included if no globs exist OR globs exist and match

[George-Const]

actually it seems it does pick up alwaysApply: true. So the problem is it doesn't include the rule by default, despite the documentation stating:

alwaysApply: Determines whether the rule is always included. Behavior is described below:
    ...
    - undefined (default behavior): Included if no globs exist OR globs exist and match

Thanks for checking this. Will test on my end and confirm. Indeed, I simply tried following documentation steps, not to mention that the green toggle next to the rule in the UI clearly suggests that it should apply to current chat sessions 😊

[George-Const]

actually it seems it does pick up alwaysApply: true. So the problem is it doesn't include the rule by default, despite the documentation stating:

alwaysApply: Determines whether the rule is always included. Behavior is described below:
    ...
    - undefined (default behavior): Included if no globs exist OR globs exist and match

Checked and confirm the 'alwaysApply: true' enables the rule.

[simonschoe]

I can confirm this. Using alwaysApply: true works, but in most of the cases thats not what I want. I usually want to set alwaysApply: false and then control the application of the rules based on the globs patterns, but these are not considered at all. Can someone confirm this behavior under VSCode?

[Hankoki]

I can confirm this. Using alwaysApply: true works, but in most of the cases thats not what I want. I usually want to set alwaysApply: false and then control the application of the rules based on the globs patterns, but these are not considered at all. Can someone confirm this behavior under VSCode?

I tried rule function in IDEA, it seems that only alwaysApply: true works. Properties like description, globs, and regex don’t appear to include rules based on file context or description. I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a configuration issue.