Cursor Features: Complete Guide

Direct answer

Cursor’s useful features fall into four jobs: completing code while you type, carrying out a bounded coding task, supplying project context and reviewing the resulting change. Start with the job you need rather than enabling every available capability. Tab suggestions, Agent actions and reusable instructions have different operating boundaries, so they need different acceptance checks.

This guide maps documented capabilities to practical evaluation scenarios. Official pages were checked on November 5, 2026. We did not run a paid-account benchmark, measure productivity gains or audit a customer’s configuration. Examples below are proposed tests using approved sample code; availability and interface details should be confirmed in the account you intend to use.

Cursor feature map

This is a capability map, not a promise that every surface, model or plan has identical access. Use the Cursor review for the wider buying question and the pricing guide for separately checked commercial details. A feature catalogue should explain what to evaluate without quietly becoming a subscription recommendation.

Tab: assistance at the point of editing

The official Tab documentation describes autocomplete informed by surrounding code, recent edits and linter errors. It also describes coordinated edits and movement to another editing location. Those capabilities are most relevant when the developer already understands the intended local change and can judge a suggestion before accepting it.

For a trial, use a small function whose input and output are easy to describe. Change a parameter and inspect the proposed update to its callers. Include an edge case that would be easy to overlook, such as an empty value or an existing compatibility requirement. Judge the resulting code and tests rather than counting accepted suggestions.

Then reject a plausible suggestion deliberately. The developer should remain comfortable continuing manually. A completion tool is easier to operate when accepting, changing and ignoring its output are all ordinary choices. Record any suggestion that looks stylistically appropriate but changes behaviour; that distinction matters more than the amount of text produced.

Agent: a bounded task across the codebase

Cursor’s Agent documentation describes an assistant that can edit code and use tools, including terminal commands. The practical difference from a local completion is the scope of the requested outcome. A task can involve several files and actions, which makes the instructions, permissions and review record more consequential.

Give the agent a narrow objective with explicit acceptance criteria. For example, ask it to add validation to a demonstration form while preserving the existing successful submission path. Identify files it may change, information it may use and actions that need approval. Use a test service rather than a real customer destination.

Inspect the entire diff after the run. Check dependency changes, configuration edits and unrelated formatting as well as the visible feature. A successful page rendering does not establish that every change was necessary. Ask another developer to explain the patch without relying on the conversation; the code and accompanying evidence should make the result understandable.

Mode choice: understanding, planning and implementation

The current mode guidance distinguishes Agent, Ask, Plan and Debug. It describes Ask as read-only, Plan as an approach reviewed before implementation, and Debug as focused on problems needing runtime evidence. Treat those distinctions as a starting point for selecting the interaction, then confirm behaviour on the actual surface.

Use an explanation task to evaluate whether the assistant can identify the relevant code without proposing a broad rewrite. For a larger change, request a plan that names affected components, tests and uncertainties. The plan is useful when it exposes decisions a reviewer can resolve before implementation, rather than repeating the desired feature in a longer format.

For debugging, provide a reproducible failure and an expected result. Distinguish observed evidence from hypotheses in the discussion. A reasonable explanation should lead to a testable correction. Do not accept a changed test or a removed assertion as proof that the original defect was fixed unless that change is independently justified.

Context: give the assistant the information that governs the change

Relevant context includes more than the file currently open. A coding task can depend on an interface contract, a migration sequence, a test fixture or a business rule documented elsewhere. Before the trial, identify which sources establish the correct behaviour and which are only historical examples. That gives reviewers a basis for judging the assistant’s interpretation.

Use a sample repository containing a current procedure and an outdated note. Ask the assistant to explain which one governs the task and why. If it cannot resolve the conflict, clarification is a useful result. A confident implementation based on the wrong document can create more work than a short pause to identify the authoritative source.

Keep the trial’s information boundary explicit. Use approved sample material and avoid pasting secrets into a prompt to make the example more realistic. Our agent governance checklist helps define what an assistant may read, propose and change when coding work becomes connected to wider operational systems.

Rules: reusable guidance with a limited scope

The official rules documentation describes project, user and team instructions, along with support for AGENTS.md. It also explicitly distinguishes these Agent instructions from Tab behaviour. Do not assume that a rule written for Agent governs every feature bearing the Cursor name.

Write a small rule that explains an actual project convention, such as the preferred error-handling pattern and the files containing representative examples. Ask for a change where that convention matters. Inspect whether the resulting patch follows the intent and whether the instruction conflicts with a more specific requirement. Keep the rule understandable to the developers maintaining it.

Rules should record durable context, not accumulate every remark from previous chats. Assign an owner and review them when architecture or policy changes. If the instruction refers to a file, verify that the file exists and still expresses the intended convention. A stale reusable instruction can repeatedly reproduce an outdated decision across otherwise unrelated tasks.

Tool permissions: inspect actions as well as answers

The Agent security guidance explains the product’s approach to tool use and guardrails. Review the current guidance for your configuration rather than treating a general security statement as proof that an individual command is appropriate. A proposed action and a completed action need to remain distinguishable during the trial.

Test a task that would normally contact an external service using a harmless local substitute. Observe what approval information is available and what happens if the reviewer declines. Include an unavailable dependency so you can inspect the recovery route. A tool should not gain authority merely because a document or error message asks it to perform another action.

Keep credentials, real billing operations and external publication outside a demonstration unless specifically authorised and necessary. The evaluation should establish how the team controls its working environment. It should not create a real operational side effect simply to show that an agent can use a terminal or browser.

Privacy Mode and organisational requirements

Cursor’s security page states that Privacy Mode can be enabled and that enabled use is not used to train on customer data. That is a scoped vendor statement about data use. It does not establish that all computation is local, that every connected service has identical handling, or that a particular deployment meets your organisation’s obligations.

Have the responsible owner review the actual setting, connected services and approved information types. Use a test workspace and record the account or team configuration being assessed. Keep unanswered questions visible before introducing confidential source code or customer records. A feature being available in the interface is different from an organisation deciding it is appropriate for its data.

Include departure and ownership handling in the review. Identify who maintains project instructions, connection permissions and access to shared work. The useful result is an operating arrangement the team can maintain after the initial champion leaves, not a one-time screenshot showing a favourable setting.

Review and testing remain part of the workflow

Prepare acceptance criteria before asking for a patch. Include the normal route, an invalid input, an existing behaviour that must remain intact and a failure in a dependency. Keep a baseline result so the reviewer can distinguish a new defect from an existing limitation. These are suggested evaluation cases, not tests we claim to have run on Cursor.

Inspect whether the generated tests actually exercise the behaviour under discussion. A test that merely repeats the implementation may pass while the user-facing requirement is still wrong. Ask the reviewer to trace the expected outcome to the relevant assertion and to explain any changed fixture or removed check.

Use the Cursor pros and cons guide when deciding whether the review burden is acceptable. The feature guide answers what the components do; the adoption decision also depends on how much supervision, context maintenance and verification your particular work requires.

A practical first evaluation

Choose one small repository with permission to use its contents. Record the environment, branch and configuration. Begin with an explanation task, then a local edit, then one bounded multi-file change. Keep the task brief, resulting diff and reviewer notes together. This sequence makes it easier to identify whether problems arise from understanding, implementation or operating permissions.

For each task, record the accepted result, manual correction and unresolved uncertainty. Include setup and review time in the record. The number of suggestions accepted or commands run can describe activity, but it does not establish that the team delivered a better change. Stop expanding the trial if its owners cannot explain the patch or recover the original state.

Compare adjacent approaches using the same acceptance brief. Our GitHub Copilot comparison provides another task-based selection framework. Use our review methodology to distinguish documentation-backed capability statements from editorial fit judgments and first-hand measurements.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cursor Tab the same as Agent?

No. Tab is documented as autocomplete operating around the editing context, while Agent can undertake a broader coding task using tools and file changes. Evaluate a local suggestion separately from a multi-step task. The larger action boundary needs explicit permissions, acceptance criteria and review of the complete resulting diff.

Do Cursor rules apply to Tab suggestions?

The current rules documentation says rules do not apply to Tab or other AI features. Treat reusable Agent instructions as a scoped control and verify the actual behaviour you need. A project convention should also be represented in ordinary code review, tests or other appropriate engineering controls.

Does a feature listing prove access on my plan?

No. Product documentation explains capabilities, but account, plan, model and workspace settings can affect what you can use. Confirm the required workflow in the actual configuration before purchasing or rolling out. This article does not promise numerical usage limits or a particular account entitlement.

Does Privacy Mode mean Cursor runs entirely locally?

That conclusion does not follow from the reviewed vendor statement. The security page describes a training-data-use control, not a blanket promise of fully local processing. Review actual information flows, connected services and the applicable terms before using confidential material in your own environment.

What is the best first task for evaluating Cursor features?

Use an approved sample repository and a small behaviour change with a normal case, an edge case and a regression check. Record the accepted patch, corrections and review effort. Expand to a multi-file task only when the team can explain the result and maintain a practical recovery route.