Cursor

Overview

Freshness note: AI products change rapidly. This profile is a point-in-time snapshot last verified on February 15, 2026.

Cursor is an AI-native code editor that blends chat, inline edits, and “agent” workflows into a VS Code–style IDE. It’s for developers who want more than autocomplete: asking questions about a codebase, requesting targeted refactors, and delegating multi-step implementation work to an agent while staying in control. It runs as a desktop app on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and it feels like an IDE first—not a browser tab bolted onto your editor.

Key Features

Cursor’s core loop is “write, ask, edit” without leaving the file you’re working in. You get strong tab completions for the everyday grind, plus fast inline editing for refactors, rewrites, and mechanical transformations (the kind of changes you can do by hand, but don’t want to). The agent workflow is where it becomes different from standard assistants: you can hand it a task like “add auth, update the UI, and fix the tests,” and it will plan and apply changes across files, producing reviewable diffs as it goes.

Cursor also pushes into “team-scale” workflows: rules/commands that act like lightweight guardrails for how the assistant behaves in your repo, plus features like code review and CLI-based agents that let you bring the same agentic behavior into terminal-heavy routines.

The Cursor 2.0 release leaned further into this direction, introducing a multi-agent interface and a first-party coding model called Composer aimed at fast, longer-horizon agentic work.

Strengths

Cursor is at its best when you treat it like a junior engineer with absurd typing speed. If you’re good at stating intent and constraints, it can crush the boring middle: wiring layers together, doing consistent refactors, translating patterns across modules, and producing “good enough to review” first drafts.

It’s also unusually good at keeping you in flow. Because the chat, edits, and diffs live inside the editor, you spend less time shuttling context between tools. If you already live comfortably in a VS Code-like environment, the learning curve is mostly about collaboration habits (how to prompt, how to review) rather than learning a new IDE.

Limitations

Agentic coding is still software engineering with a mischievous gremlin hiding in the walls. Cursor can produce plausible-but-wrong implementations, miss edge cases, or drift from your intended architecture unless you keep it tightly anchored. The more “product thinking” a task requires, the more you should expect to steer.

Costs and limits can also be a surprise if you lean hard on frontier models or long-context tasks. Cursor’s plans mix subscription tiers with usage limits/allowances, so heavy users should keep an eye on what workflows are “cheap” versus what burns through usage quickly.

Practical Tips

Start by writing a short project rules doc (or repo-specific guidelines) and point Cursor at it constantly. Agents do better when you pin them to your conventions: architecture boundaries, naming, testing style, and what not to do.

Keep agent tasks small and verifiable. Ask for a plan first, then approve one slice at a time: “add types,” “wire endpoint,” “update tests,” “clean up.” You’ll get fewer sprawling diffs and far fewer spooky regressions.

Use Cursor like a review accelerator, not an authority. Let it draft, then make it explain: “What changed, why, and what could break?” Treat that output as a checklist for your own review and testing.

Reserve premium model usage for the parts that actually need reasoning (design, tricky bugs, refactors). Use faster routing/cheaper modes for mechanical edits and boilerplate.

Verdict

Cursor is one of the strongest “AI-first IDE” options right now. It’s ideal for developers who want an integrated workflow where chat, refactors, and agents live next to the code, and who are willing to be the adult in the room—setting constraints, running tests, and doing real code review. If you expect magic that replaces engineering judgment, Cursor will disappoint (and occasionally prank you with very confident mistakes).