Cursor Tips

Hey people!

I've been using Cursor AI IDE for about 2 months, every day, for both work and hobby coding and I feel I can share some great tips about it

First of all, if you're not familiar with Cursor or AI in Web Development in general, I highly suggest watching the videos below:

AI tools for software engineers, but without the hype – with Simon Willison (Co-Creator of Django) (must watch/listen)

Using it with PRD and documentation: Best Cursor Workflow that no one talks about... (no need to watch everything; the first 18 min

are enough to get the idea)

Cursor + Playwright: How to Build Robust Applications with Cursor AI + Playwright

.cursorrules

Use a .cursorrules file in the root directory of your project to automatically use its content as context for all Cursor prompts.

It is shared for everyone and subject to git versioning.

Great to guide the AI to code like you’d do

Great to remind the AI about outdated things (like 'use client' on top of client-side files in Nextjs)

Use

Keeping a Clean Working Directory

Always keep your working directory free of uncommitted changes.

Easy Reversion: Revert unwanted AI changes easily.

Manageable Commits: Make small, focused commits.

Linking to Documentation

Add links to library documentation in your prompts to guide the AI.

Up-to-Date Implementations: Ensures the AI uses the latest methods.

Avoid Deprecated Code: Prevents outdated implementations.

Tip: Include documentation links in your prompts.

Example: "Refer to Library X Documentation to implement the new feature."

Press @ do add a new documentation. We can even share them with the team

Using Voice-to-Text Tools and Chatbots

Utilize tools like Wispr Flow and ChatGPT to streamline your workflow.

Wispr Flow: Transcribes voice to text for faster prompt creation.

ChatGPT: Generates documentation without extensive typing.

Complex Prompts: Provides detailed context for better AI responses.

Tip: Combine voice transcription with chatbots to create and refine prompts efficiently.

Models

Use claude-3.5-sonnet for everything. Sometimes, o1-mini is more helpful when the task involves more thinking. The o1-preview model is pretty expensive in Cursor ($0.40/request), and using it on the ChatGPT Plus website is worthwhile.

(TODO: This is a published draft version of this blog post, I still want to format it better and add images)