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Cursor Installation Guide

Install the Cursor AI editor on Linux, macOS and Windows from the official apt and yum repositories, import your VS Code setup and start using Agent and Plan Mode.

Cursor is a VS Code fork with AI built in. It keeps the extensions, keybindings and settings you already use, and adds an agent that can read and change the whole project.

System Requirements

  • macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer — Apple Silicon and Intel are both supported
  • Windows 10 or newer
  • Debian / Ubuntu 20.04+, RHEL / CentOS / Fedora 8+, or any x86_64 / arm64 Linux with glibc 2.28+
  • About 2 GB of disk space
  • A Cursor account (free tier available)

Installation Instructions

Ubuntu / Debian (apt)

# Add Cursor's signing key
curl -fsSL https://downloads.cursor.com/keys/anysphere.asc \
  | gpg --dearmor \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/cursor.gpg > /dev/null
sudo chmod go+r /etc/apt/keyrings/cursor.gpg
 
# 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
 
# Install
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cursor
 
# Verify
cursor --version

First Run

  1. Launch Cursor and sign in with your GitHub or Google account.
  2. Pick a theme and choose whether to import your VS Code settings, extensions and keybindings — say yes, it is the fastest way to get a familiar setup.
  3. Open a project folder.

Using the Agent

# Ask it to explain the codebase first
Explain this codebase. Point me to the main entry points and anything I should read
before making changes.
 
# Ask for a plan before it writes code
ModeWhat it does
AskAnswers questions, reads files, does not change anything
AgentReads, edits files and runs commands to complete a task
Plan Mode (Shift+Tab)Researches and produces an implementation plan, then waits for your approval before writing code

A good first task in a new repository:

Suggest three small, safe improvements to this codebase. Explain the tradeoffs and wait
for me to choose one.

Project Rules

Rules are persistent instructions that apply to every request in a project. Create .cursor/rules/*.mdc in the repository and commit them:

---
description: How we write and test code in this service
globs: ["src/**/*.ts"]
alwaysApply: false
---
 
- Use named exports, never default exports.
- Every new function needs a unit test in `__tests__`.
- Run `npm run lint && npm test` before you tell me a change is done.

Troubleshooting

Best Practices

  1. Import your VS Code setup — extensions, settings and keybindings all carry over.
  2. Start in Ask mode to explore a repository before letting the agent change anything.
  3. Use Plan Mode for anything multi-file and read the plan before approving it.
  4. Commit your rules to .cursor/rules/ so the whole team gets the same behaviour.
  5. Review every diff — the agent shows you exactly what changed.
  6. Keep a clean working tree so you can tell the agent's changes apart from yours.
  7. Use .cursorignore to keep secrets, build output and vendored code out of the context.
  8. Pin the version in CI images so a broken update cannot break your pipeline.

Next Steps

Overview

Install the AI editors, terminal agents and IDE extensions teams are using right now — Cursor, Zed, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Aider, Goose, OpenCode and more.

Zed

Install the open-source Zed editor with its install script, pin a specific version, migrate your VS Code settings and use the built-in agent panel and inline assistant.