Can I “bring my own AI”, meaning pay for an AI subscription externally to use so I can still use your editor? Can I export my Cursor settings like Rules from Cursor and import them into VS Code? Thanks
Hey, point by point:
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Bring your own AI. Yes, you can. In
Cursor Settings → Models, add your API key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via a custom base URL). More details: cursor.com/help/models-and-usage/api-keys. One important note: some features (Tab, Agent with Cursor native models, Background Agents, etc.) still use Cursor infrastructure and need an active plan. BYOK covers requests to the model itself, but it does not fully replace the subscription. -
Export Rules to VS Code. The rule files live in your project as
.cursor/rules/*.mdc(Project Rules), and in settings as User Rules, you can copy them. But VS Code does not have built-in support for this format. Cursor rules are injected into the Cursor agent context, so in VS Code they will not work without a matching extension. So moving the files is easy, but you will need a separate way to apply them on the VS Code side, depending on which AI tool you use there.
If you share your exact scenario, like which provider you want to connect, tell me and I can be more specific.