Create a Detail Rule

Guide the user through creating one or more new rules for their repository.

Determining the Repository

The Detail CLI infers the repository from the git or jj remote; if the user specifies a different repo, pass it explicitly to the CLI commands.

Prerequisites

The Detail CLI must be installed. If it is not available, install it with:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://cli.detail.dev | sh

The user must be authenticated. Assume that the user is authed and run commands directly. If a command fails with an authentication error, run detail auth login and guide the user through the process.

Step 1: Determine Intent

Ask the user what they want to do:

• Create a specific rule: the user has a concrete idea — a description of what the rule should enforce or catch, and optionally bug IDs (bug_...) or commit SHAs that illustrate the pattern.
• Propose rules: the user wants Detail to analyze the repository and suggest rules automatically.

Step 2: Submit the Request

For a specific rule, build the command from whatever context the user provided. At least one of --description, --bug-ids, or --commit-shas is required:

detail rules create [--description "<description>"] [--bug-ids <id1,id2>] [--commit-shas <sha1,sha2>]

For AI-proposed rules:

detail rules propose

Both commands return a request ID (rcr_...). Save it — you will need it to poll for status.

Step 3: Wait for Completion

Rule creation can take anywhere from a few minutes to roughly an hour. Poll the request status every 60 seconds until it is no longer pending:

detail rules requests show <request_id>

After each poll, show the user the current status. Keep polling until the status is completed or failed. If it fails, report the error to the user and stop.

Step 4: Review the Rules

Once completed, the request output lists all rule IDs that were created. Show each one to the user:

detail rules show <rule_id>

Walk the user through each rule's name and content. Ask if they're satisfied or if they'd like to submit another request with additional context.

Step 5: Pull All Rules Locally

Ask the user if they want to write the rule files to the repository. If yes, pull every rule that was created:

detail rules pull <rule_id>

Repeat for each rule ID. This writes files into .claude/skills/detail-rules/ by default. Use --output <dir> if the user wants a different location.

Once all rules are pulled, confirm the files written and suggest committing them.