Every new Cline project, I caught myself re-teaching the agent the same things before it could be useful: my coding standards, a memory bank, conventional commits, versioning, docs. cline-foundry is the fix — a GitHub template that encodes all of that once, so my first conversation is about the product, not the plumbing.
The 30-second problem
Agents like Cline are only as good as the context you hand them. Cline's own docs say
it directly: "Ship .clinerules with your repo to teach the agent your coding
standards, architecture, and deployment conventions." Most people don't — and then
every session starts from a blank slate.
cline-foundry is that advice, plus the rest of the boring-but-correct setup — packaged as a GitHub template.
What's inside
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
| .clinerules/ | Always-on rules: role, memory bank, workflow + command vocabulary, git, versioning, docs, security, tooling. |
| roles/ | Selectable developer-role presets (default: Staff SWE + Product Mindset). |
| memory-bank/ | The six canonical Memory Bank files (filled in on initialize project). |
| docs/ | Product spec, architecture, roadmap + ADR template. |
| .cline/skills/ | Where you add reusable skills (with a sample). |
| .github/ | Issue + PR templates for contributors. |
| AGENTS.md | Cross-tool pointer so this works in Cline, Claude Code, Codex, and more. |
| .clineignore / .gitignore | Context-reduction + secret-hygiene defaults. |
The command vocabulary
No scripts, no Makefile — you drive the agent with trigger phrases defined in
.clinerules/02-workflow.md:
initialize project— fill placeholders, set role,git init, first commit.initialize memory bank— create the sixmemory-bank/*.mdfiles.follow your custom instructions— re-read rules + memory bank, continue where you left off.update memory bank— refresh all memory-bank files, then commit.git commit— stage + conventional commit.version bump— semver bump + tag +CHANGELOG.md+ release notes.sync docs— update docs + memory bank in the same commit.switch role to <name>— swap the active role preset.
Roles
Pick a persona on init, or switch role to <name> anytime. Presets live in roles/:
staff-engineer-product-mindset(default)principal-product-engineerindie-hacker-solo-foundersecurity-and-infra-engineerfrontend-product-engineer
Quickstart
Use cline-foundry as a template, clone your new repo, open it in Cline, and say:
initialize projectAnswer the prompts (name, description, role), then follow your custom instructions
and start building.
I'd recommend using this template on your next project — it gets the boring-but-correct setup out of the way so you can start on the product right away.
Extending it
- Add a role — drop a
.mdinroles/. - Add a skill — create
.cline/skills/<name>/SKILL.md. - Add a rule — add a new numbered
.clinerules/*.md.
cline-foundry is a community template, not an official Cline product. It works
anywhere that reads AGENTS.md — Cline, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
It's MIT-licensed and public — use it, fork it, or send a PR.