Rules as Skills — Constraint Delivery via the Skills Mechanism

Rule-skill protocol — hard constraints delivered as dynamically-loaded skills with -rules suffix. MUST treat any skill named *-rules as MUST-level hard constraints (load-before-act, not advisory). When authoring new hard constraints, prefer rule-skill form over traditional rule files (unless universal-and-short). Existing -rules skills: raise loading priority, enforce strict compliance, proactively load when trigger scenarios match. Installation activates global protocol across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, OpenClaw via scripts/install-meta-rule.sh — one meta-rule covers all -rules skills (current and future). Use when: writing MUST/NEVER boundaries for AI agents,…