🖱️ Cursor: the AI-first editor, now sold through The X Subscription

What Cursor is

Cursor is a fork of VS Code rebuilt around AI. Same extensions, same keybindings, same settings sync — but the editor knows about your repo in a way the stock editor doesn’t, and the agent can edit across files.

Three surfaces, in order of daily usefulness:

1. Tab — Cursor’s own completion model. It predicts multi-line edits around your cursor, not just the next token. Accept with Tab, reject with Esc, accept word-by-word with Cmd+→ (Ctrl+→ on Windows).
2. Agent — Cmd+I (Ctrl+I on Windows): describe a task, it plans, edits files, runs commands, reads the output.
3. Chat — ask about the codebase without changing it.

The 2026 twist (read this before paying)

Two events changed what “buying Cursor” means:

• August 14, 2026: SpaceX acquired Anysphere, the company behind Cursor.
• October 12, 2026: new subscriptions are sold only through The X Subscription, which bundles Cursor, Grok, Grok Bot and X Premium into one plan and one usage pool.

Current tiers:

Existing Cursor subscribers can keep their legacy plan or switch. If you’re on an old Cursor Pro plan, you don’t have to migrate — but new sign-ups start on The X Subscription.

Step 1 — Install

Windows 10+: download the .exe installer from cursor.com/downloads.

macOS 12+: download the .dmg (Apple Silicon and Intel builds).

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

# Add Cursor's GPG key
curl -fsSL https://downloads.cursor.com/keys/anysphere.asc | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/cursor.gpg > /dev/null

# Add the repository
echo "deb [arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/cursor.gpg] https://downloads.cursor.com/aptrepo stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cursor.list > /dev/null

sudo apt update
sudo apt install cursor

Linux (Fedora/RHEL):

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/cursor.repo << 'EOF'
[cursor]
name=Cursor
baseurl=https://downloads.cursor.com/yumrepo
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://downloads.cursor.com/keys/anysphere.asc
EOF

sudo dnf install cursor

macOS (Homebrew): brew install --cask cursor works too.

Step 2 — Sign in and import

Launch Cursor, sign in, and it offers to import your VS Code setup: extensions, keybindings, themes, settings. Say yes — that’s the whole point of being a fork.

Then open a folder (File → Open Folder). Cursor works on one project at a time, like VS Code.

Step 3 — Your first Agent task

Open the Agent with Cmd+I / Ctrl+I and give it something concrete:

Explain the architecture of this repo, then list the three files I should read first.

Then a real change:

The settings page loses form state on refresh. Find the cause and fix it.

The agent shows a plan, edits files as diffs, runs commands when needed, and asks before doing anything destructive. Review the diffs — the “it changed 14 files” surprise is a rite of passage.

Step 4 — Make it follow your conventions

Cursor reads project rules so you stop repeating yourself. Create .cursor/rules/ with .mdc files:

---
description: Project conventions
alwaysApply: true
---
- TypeScript strict mode, no `any`
- React Server Components by default
- Tests with Vitest, run `pnpm test` before saying done
- UI copy in French, code comments in English

It also picks up AGENTS.md at the repo root, which is becoming the cross-tool standard. Why instruction files exist →

Step 5 — Tab is the real product

People subscribe for the agent and stay for Tab. It’s a purpose-built model that predicts:

• the next edit, not just the next line,
• multi-line blocks when you’re writing something repetitive,
• suggestions that stay coherent with the edits you just made two lines above.

It learns from your accept/reject decisions within a session. Two days of normal use and it feels wrong to code without it — which is exactly why the pricing restructure matters.

Cursor vs. Copilot

If your company mandates VS Code and GitHub, Copilot. If you’re choosing your own tools and the editor is where you spend your day, Cursor’s Tab alone justifies a trial — just budget $30, not $8.