Community tips & tricks

Discussion
1

Hey!

I’ve been collecting tips n tricks from the Cursor community and wanted to share the most popular ones I’ve found so far

Setup & Configuration

  1. Create proper Cursor rules in .cursor/rules with domain-specific knowledge
  2. Tag all necessary files when providing context to ensure the model has complete information

Documentation & Context

  1. Create reference documentation (prd.md, specs.md) to give the model consistent context
  2. Use @ references to provide specific context from other files
  3. Maintain todo.md files to track progress and keep the model focused on current priorities
  4. Add detailed comments about your project goals to guide the models understanding

Workflow Optimization

  1. Break down tasks into small incremental steps instead of tackling everything at once
  2. Start new chats for each task to avoid context bloat
  3. Plan with “ask” mode, then implement with “agent” mode for clearer outcomes
  4. Use reasoning models (e.g., 3.7 max mode) for planning, regular models for implementation

Best Practices

  1. Be specific with prompts. Clear instructions consistently yield better results
  2. Adopt TDD when working with AI assistance
  3. Understand the limitations of AI coding assistance
  4. Avoid over-reliance on the tool for critical tasks

What else should be added here?

2

Pretty basic but: use a free model such as deepseek-v3.1 for Ctrl + K.