Cursor Setup and Your First AI-Assisted Code

What Makes Cursor Different

Cursor is a fork of VS Code — it looks identical and supports all the same extensions. The difference is how AI is integrated. Other tools add AI as a sidebar feature. Cursor makes AI the primary interaction model.

GitHub Copilot → In-line completion only → Suggests next line based on context → Doesn't understand full codebase

ChatGPT / Claude.ai → Copy-paste workflow (slow) → No IDE integration → Doesn't see your actual files

Cursor → Tab: multi-line completion based on intent → Cmd+K: inline editing with AI → Cmd+L: full chat with codebase context → Composer: write entire features across files → @mentions: reference specific files, docs, web pages

The key advantage: Cursor knows your codebase. You can ask "how does user authentication work in this project?" and it reads the relevant files to answer. Copilot and ChatGPT can't do this.

Install and Configure

Download Cursor from cursor.so. Install it like any application. On first launch:

Import your VS Code settings if prompted — this brings over your extensions, themes, and keybindings so Cursor feels immediately familiar.

Open Settings (Cmd/Ctrl + ,) → Cursor Settings. Under Models, choose your preferred AI. Claude Sonnet or GPT-4o are the best choices for coding in 2025.

Enable Auto-import in settings if you use TypeScript or JavaScript — Cursor will automatically add import statements when it writes code that needs them.

Tab Completion and Inline Editing

Tab Completion. This is the feature you'll use most. Start typing or write a comment describing what you want, and Cursor predicts your next lines. Press Tab to accept, Escape to reject.

The key difference from Copilot: Cursor's Tab completion is "next edit prediction" — it predicts what change you're about to make based on recent edits, not just what line comes next. Write one function, then start writing a similar one — Cursor fills it in based on the pattern.

Inline Editing (Cmd+K). Select any code and press Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows). A small prompt appears. Type what you want: "add error handling," "refactor to use async/await," "add type hints." The AI modifies the selected code in place, and you see a diff before accepting.

"add try/except for network errors"
"convert this to a list comprehension"
"add docstring"
"make this function take a list instead of a single item"
"optimize this loop"

Practice both on a real file you're working on. The goal for today: understand when Tab feels natural vs. when Cmd+K is better. Tab for continuation. Cmd+K for transformation.