Shadow Workspace Opt-in

[con]

Hello there,

Cursor - Built Software Faster says that the Shadow Workspace is an opt-in settings.
I searched around but could not find further info.

How do I opt-in please?

Cheers

[drcodez]

CMD/CTRL + SHIFT + J to get to the main settings. Then click “Open editor settings” under the Editor section.

Should see it under the Cursor section from there:

[Taidan]

Which os? I’m not seeing it on windows

[drcodez]

This was on a Mac. Try going to the JSON settings directly and adding it.

• ctrl + p to bring up the command palette
• Type “>Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON)”
• In your settings configuration file add: “cursor.general.enableShadowWorkspace”: true,

[Taidan]

Makes sense. I actually think they left it off windows for technical reasons, per the blog post… hopefully temporary.

@truell20 can you confirm?

[drcodez]

Hmmm make sure you’re updated. I just downloaded Cursor on a windows machine and can confirm the option is there.

[fun_strange]

Has anyone tested this? Does it make a difference in the quality of responses/completions?

[con]

Thanks @drcodez - found the settings.

[Mike45 (Mike)]

I ran some test on two workspaces.

One had shadow workspace turned on and the other off.

The shadow workspace turned on had big improvements.

I recommend turning it on!

[con]

I am inclined to agree. The shadow workspace consumes about 1.6GB memory additionally on my machine and the results need much more time to appear. However the quality of answer with Claude 3.5 Sonnet have improved palpably.

[Taidan]

Weird, ctrl+shift+j brings me to dedicated cursor settings, where there is no shadow workspace option. If I manually go to vscode settings, it’s there.

no SW here:

[cryrivers (Andy)]

The shadow workspace turned on had big improvements.

big improvements in terms of performance or AI functionality?

I turned Shadow Workspace on and nothing happened so far. How can I make it work at background? Is it supposed to be used with Composer?