What is Cursor and what can it do?

Have you always wanted to have someone who perfectly completes your (programming) sentences for you? Get to know Cursor.

What is Cursor? Cursor is an IDE, or code writing program, that has AI. It finishes the code you've written, does the refactoring for you, helps you find bugs, or creates APIs or components. It's such a tireless helper.

If you haven't used Cursor yet but would like to get started, we've prepared an overview of the basic and advanced features it offers. You don't have to use all of them, of course, but with just a few features you can program much faster and more efficiently.

If you are currently using VS Code, switching to Cursor would be almost no change. In fact, Cursor is built on VS Code and you can even have all extensions and settings transferred from VS Code to Cursor after installation. However, you need to adapt to Cursor gradually, it can help speed up development but on the other hand the agent can change your code beyond recognition through a bad prompt or misunderstanding of the project context.

Basic Instructions

Tab

To accept the draft code. Cursor keeps track of what you are creating and tries to suggest other items. If you import a function into a file, for example, it tries to look for lines where the code can be used.

Chat (command+L)

Here you can talk to Cursor about your files. You can add one, more or even a whole folder. So if the changes affect multiple files, Cursor will have better context and can advise you better.

You have a choice of 3 chat modes: Agent, Ask, and Manual.

• Agent = changes the code according to the prompt and saves the changes.
• Ask = you can ask questions about your code, but it won't make changes.
• Manual = suggests changes, but you decide which ones you want to implement.

Edit (command+K)

Using the edit function you can make changes to the marked code. For example, it is good for quick refactoring.

It will show you a result that you can accept (command + N) or refuse (command + Y).

Advanced Features

Rules

Here you have the opportunity to tell Cursor how to talk to you and what its answers should look like.

You can enter any preference you like, for example "always use type instead of interface for TypeScript".

MCP

You can unlock additional functionality using MCP servers. For example, access to the database, Stripe and others.

MCP Server configuration uses json format:

MCP server can be set up for a specific project but also globally for all projects (it is necessary to create ~/.cursor/mcp.json file in the home directory).

Chat (Agent type) will automatically use all MCP tools if it deems them relevant. To intentionally prompt the use of an MCP server, simply tell the agent to use it and refer to it either by its name or just a description:

On the settings page, you can also enable or disable individual MCP servers to control which servers are available to the agent by using the toggle button:

You can also choose the models you want to use:

Conclusion

Cursor is a superstructure over VS Code and extends it with AI functionalities. These include chat, inline edits (marking certain lines within a single file), MCP servers, and rules for communicating with AI.

Cursor can greatly speed up writing code without leaving the IDE. It whispers code, helps with refactoring, you can ask anything in chat and either let Cursor make changes or approve changes manually.

However, you need to watch out for automatic changes and generated or changed code and check everything. It is important to add as much context (folders or files) as possible to the chat window. If we give Cursor access to only one file's code, it may change it so much that the functions or components in it stop working with other files in your project.

If you want to learn more about Cursor visit their docs.

If you haven't tried Cursor yet, you can download it here.

If you don't want to close the VS Code plugin import window, you can sync later in the settings:

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