Getting your brand guidelines to AI agents
How to give Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor your brand guidelines and files, what each tool’s project files and rules do, and when one shared brand is worth it.
Each AI tool has its own place for a guide. Claude and ChatGPT have project files and instructions. Cursor has rules, and Claude also has skills. Put the rules where the tool treats them as rules, and put the files where the tool can read them. Then keep the copies the same as the guide.
| Tool | Rules go in | Files go in | Shared with others |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Projects | Project instructions | Project knowledge | On Team and Enterprise plans |
| ChatGPT Projects | Project instructions | Project files: 5 to 40 per project, by plan | Yes, by invitation |
| Cursor | .cursor/rules or AGENTS.md |
Your repository | Through version control. Team rules are on Team and Enterprise plans |
| Claude Skills | SKILL.md |
The folder of the skill | Owners can give skills to everyone on Team and Enterprise plans |
The plans are as of 11 November 2026. The current plans are on the Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor pricing pages.
Claude Projects
A Claude project has a knowledge base and project instructions. Claude uses the documents in the knowledge base in every chat in the project, and the instructions apply to every chat in it. As of 11 November 2026, free accounts can also have projects, up to five of them. Files can be up to 30 MB each.
On paid plans, a project with knowledge near the context limit changes to retrieval. Anthropic says that this increases the capacity up to ten times. On Team and Enterprise plans, people can share a project with colleagues.
For a brand guide, put the guide and the one-page brand sheet in the knowledge base. Put the hard rules in the project instructions: logo, colors, and words to avoid.
ChatGPT Projects
A ChatGPT project keeps chats, files, and instructions together. You can upload PDFs, spreadsheets, documents, and images, or paste text. Project instructions apply only in that project, and they replace your general custom instructions there. As of 11 November 2026, free accounts can add 5 files per project, Go and Plus 25, and Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu 40. People can share projects.
For custom GPTs, OpenAI advises knowledge files for reference material, and instructions for rules, tone, and workflow. OpenAI says that it plans to retire custom GPTs and move them to plugins. The standard retirement is scheduled for December 11, 2026. So build new brand setups as projects.
Cursor
Cursor reads rules. Project rules are in .cursor/rules, under version control with the code. There are also user rules, team rules, and an AGENTS.md file. A rule can apply to every chat, to files that match a pattern, or when the agent decides that it is relevant. The Cursor docs advise less than 500 lines for each rule. The docs also tell you not to copy full style guides into rules.
For a brand guide, write a short rule with the values that a coding agent needs: colors, fonts, spacing, and words in the interface. Point the rule to the logo files and font files in the repository. The agent reads the files that a rule mentions when it needs them. It does not paste them into every prompt.
Claude Skills
A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file and the other files that it needs, for example Markdown, scripts, and templates. Anthropic gives brand style guidelines for documents and presentations as an example of a custom skill. Claude loads only the name and description of a skill until it needs the skill. So a skill can hold a full guide and the files.
In Claude Code, skills are folders in your project or home directory. In the Claude apps, you upload skills as a zip file on paid plans, as of 11 November 2026. On Team and Enterprise plans, owners can give skills to everyone in the organization.
How to keep the copies the same
Each of these tools holds its own copy. When the guide changes, you must change every project, rule, and skill that holds a copy. Nobody tells you when you miss one. For one person in one tool, that is easy. For a team, several tools, or several brands, old logos and colors come from these missed copies.
One brand for every agent
For brand work through agents in a team, in several tools, or for many client brands, we recommend Rainbrand, the brand layer for agents. You connect your agents one time. Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, and other agents that support remote MCP (Model Context Protocol) can connect. Then you add the brand from your guide, website, logo files, and fonts.
For each task, an agent requests a Brief, which is the guidance and assets for that task. A Review checks the finished work against the brand (colors, typography, logo, and copy). It returns findings that you use to revise. When the brand changes, you edit it in one place, and not in every project. If you need the whole brand as files, you can export it as a Brand Skill folder.
If your guidelines are already in a platform with its own MCP server, for example Frontify, that can be all that your agents need. Rainbrand adds a brand to the tools that you already use. It does not replace your guide or your agents.