Cursor is an AI-first IDE forked from VS Code. AI capabilities are implemented in the editor core rather than as extensions, allowing deeper integration with editor state than plugin-based approaches permit.
Composer/Agent mode is the primary agentic interface: it reads across multiple files, proposes coordinated multi-file edits, executes shell commands, and iterates on test failures within a conversational loop. Codebase indexing builds a semantic vector index of the repository at startup, making symbol and file references available to the agent without manual context insertion. Tab completion runs on Cursor's own low-latency model independently from the chat and agent models.
Model selection covers Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o, Gemini, and Cursor's own models; premium requests route to upstream Anthropic and OpenAI APIs. Privacy Mode disables code storage and excludes code from training; the product is SOC 2 Type II certified. Rules files and AGENTS.md encode project-level behavioral instructions for the agent. Pricing: Free (limited), Pro ($20/month), Business ($40/user/month).
