One question separates the three modes
The mode selector sits on the home page, and the tray menu switches it without opening the window. All three options change one thing: whether a connection is handed to the rule list at all.
Rule mode is where you live. Global and direct are not settings you leave on, they are instruments. When something breaks, they remove one variable at a time until the failure has a single explanation.
Direct is not the same as off
Direct mode does not take Clash Verge out of the path. The core still accepts every connection and forwards it untouched.
What each mode does to a connection
- 1
Rule mode: matched line by line
Traffic enters the rule list and is compared from the top down. The first rule that matches decides the policy, and the comparison ends there. The familiar split, domestic sites direct and everything else through a node, is a rule list arranged in that order.
- 2
Global mode: one exit for everything
The rule list is skipped and every connection goes to the same outbound. The value is diagnostic. If global works and rule mode does not, the fault is in your rules. If global fails too, the rules were never involved and you should be looking at the node.
- 3
Direct mode: everything passes untouched
Nothing is proxied. Use it for large downloads, for machines on your own network, or to answer in seconds whether the proxy is causing this. A direct test tells you one thing: whether the problem survives with no proxy in the way.
Match order, and the minutes after you switch
Rules are read from the top and the first match wins; nothing below it is consulted again. So when traffic goes somewhere strange, the culprit is usually not the rule you just added but a broader one above it. The last line, MATCH, is the catch all for everything that matched nothing.
- Switching modes leaves existing connections alone; they finish on the path they started on
- If nothing changes, close the relevant rows on the Connections page so they reconnect
- Switch back to rule mode afterwards, or domestic traffic keeps taking the long way
Common questions
A site goes direct in rule mode. How do I find the rule responsible?
Open the Connections page while the site loads, expand the row and read the Rule column, which names the rule that matched. If the connection has closed, search the domain on the Rules page and read down to the first entry that can match it. Usually it is a broad DOMAIN-KEYWORD line.
Global mode does not work either. What does that tell me?
That routing is not the problem. Run a latency test on the node and see whether it answers at all. If every node times out, check whether the subscription expired or ran out of traffic, then read the log page for handshake failures.