Cursor Guide

Cursor is a VS Code fork with deep AI integration — inline editing, agent mode, and project-wide understanding.

Setup

Key Features

Agent

Cursor's multi-file agent (previously called "Composer" in 2024 docs, now documented as Agent) reads your codebase, plans changes across files, and applies them with your approval.

• Cmd+I — Open Agent for multi-file agent mode (previously "Composer")
• Cmd+K — Inline edit at cursor position
• Cmd+L — Chat about selected code

Shortcuts are configurable. Check Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts for your current mapping — Cursor has historically renamed features (e.g. "Composer" → "Agent") and reshuffled bindings across major versions.

Rules: .cursor/rules/*.mdc

Project-level instructions, similar to CLAUDE.md. The current recommended path is a .cursor/rules/ directory with per-rule .mdc files (each with frontmatter). The single-file .cursorrules at project root still works as a legacy fallback but is no longer the documented default.

---
description: TypeScript + Next.js patterns for this repo
globs: ['**/*.ts', '**/*.tsx']
alwaysApply: false
---

- Use Next.js App Router patterns
- Prefer Server Components
- Use Drizzle ORM for database queries
- Always validate input with Zod

Each rule declares:

• description — what the rule is for (used when Cursor decides which rules apply)
• globs — path patterns that scope the rule
• alwaysApply — whether the rule is always in context

In the Cursor UI, the rule-type dropdown surfaces four modes that map to these fields:

For simpler projects, a plain AGENTS.md at the project root is a documented alternative.

Context Management

• @file — Reference a specific file in chat
• @folder — Include a directory
• @codebase — Search the entire project
• @web — Search the web for documentation
• @docs — Reference indexed documentation

Cursor vs Claude Code

Tips

• Use @codebase in Agent for project-wide changes
• Author rules under .cursor/rules/*.mdc with globs to scope them per directory
• Pin important files in context to keep them visible
• Use "Apply" to selectively accept changes from agent mode