Firebender can be configured at both the project and personal levels. This flexibility allows you to define project-specific settings while maintaining your personal preferences across all projects.
Project icon

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Project Rules

Stored in your project’s root directory, version-controlled and scoped to your project.

Location: $projectRoot/firebender.json
Person icon

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Personal Rules

Stored in your home directory, accessed through your IDE settings and scoped to all projects.

Location: ~/.firebender/firebender.json
When both configurations exist, rules, ignore patterns, and MCP server configurations from both files are appended together. For the mcpEnvFile setting specifically, the project configuration takes precedence.

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Accessing Configurations

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Project Configuration

Create or edit firebender.json in your project root directory using any text editor.

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Personal Configuration

You can access your personal configuration through Firebender Settings:
  1. Go to Firebender Settings
  2. Click the “Open Personal Rules File” button
Personal Rules section with Open Personal Rules File button
  1. If the file doesn’t exist, it will be created with default template content

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Configuration Structure

Both configuration files use the same JSON structure and support the same fields: 
{
  "rules": [
    "string rule",
    {
      "filePathMatches": "glob/pattern",
      "rules": ["rule1", "rule2"]
    }
  ],
  "ignore": [
    "glob/pattern1",
    "glob/pattern2"
  ],
  "mcpServers": {
    "serverName": {
      "command": "executable",
      "args": ["arg1", "arg2"],
      "env": {"KEY": "VALUE"}
    }
  },
  "mcpEnvFile": "path/to/env/file"
}

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Path Resolution

When specifying paths in your configuration (such as in rulesPaths or mcpEnvFile), Firebender resolves relative paths based on the location of the corresponding configuration file:
  • Project configuration: Relative paths are resolved from your project’s root directory
  • Personal configuration: Relative paths are resolved from the ~/.firebender directory
This allows you to reference files relative to their appropriate context, whether in your project or in your personal configuration directory.

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How Configurations Are Merged

When both project and personal configurations exist, Firebender merges them using these rules:
  1. Rules: All rules from both files are collected and applied
  2. Ignore patterns: All patterns from both files are combined
  3. MCP servers: Server configurations from both files are appended together
  4. mcpEnvFile: The project configuration takes precedence for this setting