What Cursor does
Cursor is a code editor with AI woven into search, editing, refactoring, debugging, and codebase-wide questions.
How Cursor works
Cursor indexes your project and combines that context with your prompt and selected files. Its agent can propose or apply edits, run commands, and respond to results.
Understand the repository
When a project is opened, Cursor indexes the codebase so search and AI features can retrieve relevant files, symbols, and relationships. Project rules add architectural conventions, commands, and boundaries.
Define the change precisely
Describe the desired behavior, relevant files, constraints, and acceptance criteria. The agent combines your prompt with selected code and retrieved repository context to decide what it needs to inspect.
Edit and run tools
Cursor proposes or applies changes across files and can run commands such as tests, builds, or searches. Results and errors become new context, allowing the agent to adjust its approach instead of stopping at the first draft.
Approve the actual diff
Review every changed file, security implication, migration, and dependency. Run the project’s normal checks and test the behavior yourself; code that compiles can still be architecturally wrong or incomplete.
How to set up Cursor
Install and import
Download Cursor, sign in, and import settings from your current editor if desired.
Open a repository
Let Cursor index the project so it can answer codebase-aware questions.
Set project rules
Add concise rules for architecture, conventions, and commands the agent should follow.
Cursor FAQs
Listing reviewed July 15, 2026. Product details and pricing can change; verify important terms on the provider's website.
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