title: "UI Tour" description: "Map of the Cursor editor and what's unique" section: "Cursor" readTime: "5 min" badge: "NEW"

Cursor: UI Tour

It looks like VS Code. It's not.

Tab (Next-Edit Prediction)

Start typing. Multi-line ghost text appears based on your code context.

Press Tab to accept. Escape to dismiss. After accepting, press Tab again to jump to the next place Tab predicts you'll edit. Accept one word at a time with Ctrl+Right (Cmd+Right on Mac).

Click the Tab indicator in the bottom-right corner to snooze Tab or disable it for specific file types.

The Agent Panel (Ctrl+I / Ctrl+L)

Cursor merged the old Chat and Composer panels into one Agent side panel in version 0.46. Ctrl+I or Ctrl+L (Cmd on Mac) toggles it. "Composer" is now the name of Cursor's own coding model, not a panel.

One place to manage:

• Agent conversations (multi-file, autonomous edits and terminal commands)
• Modes: Agent, Ask, Plan, Debug
• @ mentions for context
• Model switching

Workflow:

1. Describe the task
2. Agent searches, edits files, and runs commands
3. Review the diffs
4. Accept, edit, or restore a checkpoint (snapshot taken before significant changes; restoring reverts files, not chat history)

@ Mentions for Context

Type @ in the Agent input:

• @Files & Folders — attach a file or folder (@auth.ts, @src/components/)
• @Terminals — terminal output
• @Chats — context from a previous conversation
• @Commit / @Branch — working-state diff, or the branch diff against main
• @Browser — context from the built-in browser

You can also drag in or paste images and screenshots. Cursor's agent searches the codebase on its own, so you rarely need to point at everything by hand.

Rules

.cursor/rules/ holds project rules as .mdc files. This is Cursor's counterpart to CLAUDE.md in Claude Code. Cursor also reads a plain AGENTS.md in the project root or subdirectories.

Format (.cursor/rules/style.mdc):

---
description: Team coding standards
globs: src/**/*.ts
alwaysApply: false
---
 
# Always use TypeScript strict mode

Manage rules and user-level preferences from Cursor's Customize area.

Model Picker

Click the model name in the Agent input. Cursor's list today includes:

• Cursor models: Composer 2.5, Grok 4.7
• Anthropic: Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Sonnet 5.5, Claude Haiku 5.5, and older 4.x models
• OpenAI: GPT-5.5, GPT-5.x Codex variants
• Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3.8 Flash
• Others: GLM, Kimi, Muse Spark

The list changes often. See cursor.com/docs/models for the current one. Third-party models are billed at API rates; Auto routes each request for cost, balance, or intelligence.

Codebase Search and Indexing

Cursor searches your project locally and semantically. You can inspect what's included and which files are excluded under Cursor Settings > Indexing. Use a .cursorignore file to keep files out of Cursor entirely.

Plan Mode

For complex tasks, press Shift+Tab in the Agent input to switch to Plan Mode (Cursor may also suggest it):

1. Describe the task
2. The agent asks clarifying questions and researches your codebase
3. It produces a plan you can edit
4. Click to build when you're happy with it

Plans are saved to your home directory by default; use Save to workspace to keep one in the repo. It's the counterpart of plan mode in Claude Code.

Rules vs CLAUDE.md Comparison

Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Ref

On macOS, use Cmd instead of Ctrl. See the keyboard shortcut reference for more.

Unique Features (vs VS Code + Copilot)

• Tab — next-edit prediction native to the editor
• Plan and Debug modes — plan before coding; instrument and reproduce elusive bugs
• Worktrees and parallel agents — run isolated agents side by side
• Cloud Agents — agents that run in isolated cloud VMs
• Multi-model choice — switch between Cursor, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and other models

Next: Jump to Setup to configure your first project.