Rule Providers 101: Self-Updating Rule Sets

Hand-writing hundreds of DOMAIN-SUFFIX rules is unmaintainable — the internet moves. Rule providers externalize rules into remote files that the core re-downloads on a schedule, leaving a single reference line in your config.

The basic recipe

Add two blocks to the Merge section of your global extend config:

rule-providers:
  streaming:
    type: http
    behavior: classical
    format: yaml
    url: "https://example.com/rules/streaming.yaml"
    path: ./ruleset/streaming.yaml
    interval: 86400

rules:
  - RULE-SET,streaming,Node Choice
  - GEOIP,CN,DIRECT
  - MATCH,Node Choice

interval: 86400 refreshes daily. The RULE-SET,streaming,Node Choice line means: any traffic matching anything in that rule set goes to the "Node Choice" proxy group.

The three behavior types

• domain — plain domain lists; fastest matching, best for large lists;
• ipcidr — plain IP-range lists;
• classical — full rule syntax with type prefixes on every line; most flexible, slightly slower.

The declared behavior must match what's actually inside the file — a mismatch fails the whole provider at load time.

Where to find rule sources

The most actively maintained community collections are blackmatrix7/ios_rule_script (rules grouped per service, complete Clash formats) and MetaCubeX's meta-rules-dat. Choose rule sources like you choose providers: widely used, frequently updated, publicly hosted.

Debugging

• Provider downloads follow your proxy logic — if the first fetch fails, switch to Global mode and update again;
• The Rules page has search: type a domain to see exactly which rule catches it;
• Rules match top-down. A RULE-SET placed too late can be shadowed by earlier rules — order matters.