cursor-best-practices

SKILL.md

Guidance for maximizing Cursor productivity through planning, context management, and effective agent workflows.

Start with Plan Mode for complex tasks and manage context by letting the agent find relevant code, starting fresh conversations when needed

Extend agent capabilities using Rules for static context and Skills for dynamic, reusable operations

Adopt test-driven development, use the agent to explore codebases, automate git operations, and run parallel agents for comparison

Review AI-generated code with the same rigor as human-written code

Cursor Best Practices

Best practices for working with Cursor to maximize productivity and code quality.

Core Principles

Start with plans - Use Plan Mode (Shift+Tab) for complex tasks

Manage context effectively - Let agent find context, start new conversations when needed

Extend the agent - Use Rules for static context, Skills for dynamic capabilities

Review carefully - AI-generated code needs review like human code

Key Workflows

Test-driven development - Write tests first, iterate until passing

Codebase understanding - Use agent to explore and learn codebases

Git workflows - Automate common git operations with commands

Parallel agents - Run multiple agents simultaneously for comparison

References