Bring back the Design Sidebar — visual HTML/CSS editing was a core part of Design Mode

Ideas Feature Requests
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1

Hi Cursor team,

Please bring back the Design Sidebar that used to appear in Design Mode when working with HTML.

The old sidebar had a components tree (full DOM hierarchy) and visual controls for layout, spacing, typography, and appearance. I could select an element, tweak properties, and see changes immediately — without prompting the agent for every small change.

That workflow was huge for HTML/CSS prototyping (paywalls, mobile screens, landing pages). I could explore visually, find the exact component causing an issue, and only then ask the agent to fix it.

Current Design Mode is mainly selection for the agent. Useful, but not a replacement for direct visual editing.

Request: Restore the full sidebar — components tree + property panel — in Design Mode (or port the CSS Inspector from the Editor browser pane).

This was one of the features that made Cursor stand out for design work. Please consider bringing it back.

Thanks!

6

Thank you for the feedback @Tr_n_Minh_Quang ! I’ve linked your forum post to an existing request.

7

Hi Kevin, it would be good to know when the CSS inspector is coming back as using Cursor?

Without the CSS inspector it is extremely frustrating when I need to check what Agents have done. To me, this was not used as an editing tool, but for quick validation as opposed to using the browser dev tools then digging through there!

Asking an agent for the details costs more tokens (which is why I am guessing the CSS inspector was removed in the first place :face_with_raised_eyebrow: !) as opposed to me being able to actually see what was done quickly. This was one of the key selling points of Cursor!