I recommend setting up Claude Projects or another system you’re good with using that has full context, not RAG. Load your Rules, prompts, agent prompts, and information from Cursor’s documentation on how the prompt system works. The agent inside Cursor does not have access to edit the rules for you, so it’s best to manage this externally in a platform you trust and that can see the complete picture. Make any necessary changes, then move the updated rules back to Cursor.
Check out @robotlovehuman’s RIPPER-5 prompt. It’s really good out of the box. I drove it daily for a week before I started customizing it for my needs.
Be sure you add any documentation you need for the project you’re working on to Cursor Settings > Features > Docs section. You should only add the index page for the documentation, and Cursor will handle the rest.
MCPs!!! I can’t stress this enough. Add and instruct your agent to use MCPs. They will save you a lot of time. If you work with packages in npm a lot, add package-versions. Add extra abilities for the LLM and add the sequential-thinking MCP. Be sure you use Browser-Tools; it will save you HOURS. Magic-MCP is excellent if you do a lot of front-end UI stuff. They have a ton of rep-built items your agent can query and use. I also highly recommend using Brave Search since it’s free or very cheap, depending on how much you use it (I’ve never exhausted the credits), and add Perplexity Deep Research to it. Your agent needs to be able to research when it gets stuck and find updated packages when needed, and deep research is invaluable. I regularly ask my agent to craft all the questions it’s having trouble with and query Perplexity Deep Research, let it go out and find everything, and then return a report that the agent can use. Save these reports if you need them. They are valuable, and you paid for them using their API, but the agent WILL forget.
Set up a memory bank. Cline has a good one in their documentation. Repurpose it to use with Cursor.
I’ll be releasing my complete system soon. Be on the lookout for that.