Overview

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Tools

Chat has a range of tools that you can use to help you search, edit and run commands. Read more about the tools in tools

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Modes

You can switch between modes during a conversation using the mode picker or ⌘. shortcut. This flexibility lets you adapt to your current needs - from asking questions to making changes to using advanced tools.

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Models

Each mode can have a preselected model that will be used when the mode is selected. You can always change the model from the model picker.

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Shortcuts

Each mode has a default shortcut that you can change from the mode picker.

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Pre-defined modes

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Custom modes

You can create custom modes that you can select from the mode picker.

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Default mode

You can set the default mode from settings (Settings → Features → Chat → Default chat mode) to one of your modes or the one you use most recently

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Context

You can use @-symbols to include relevant context in your prompts. The interface will automatically suggest relevant context based on your query.

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Checkpoints

For every iteration a checkpoint is created. You can return to any previous version by clicking on checkout near that checkpoint. This is handy if you don’t like the current changes and want to revert to an earlier state.

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Chat History

Access previous conversations through the history. Open it from the history icon to the right of Cursor Tab. You’ll see a list of past conversations which you can revisit, rename, or remove.

Open with ⌘+⌥+L or Ctrl+Alt+L when the interface is focused.

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Sound notification

Play a sound when a conversation is finished to let you know it’s done. This can be useful when you have multiple conversations running and want to know when one is finished.

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Long conversations

For long conversations, Cursor summarizes earlier messages with smaller models like cursor-small and gpt-4o-mini to keep responses fast and relevant. This approach helps ensure that even extended conversations remain responsive and coherent, without losing track of key details from earlier exchanges.

When a conversation starts to reach the context window limit, we’ll show a suggestion to start a new Chat with reference to the current one

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Generating & Applying Changes

Cursor has a custom model trained in-house that is able to take a series of edits, as suggested by the AI model you are using, and apply it to files with 1000s of lines in seconds.

This happens automatically in all modes

In Ask mode, you can apply changes by clicking the Apply button in the bottom right of the diff view.

Once your changes have been made, you can review them inside your codebase, and then choose to accept or reject them, if you’d like to interate further.

Learn More about Apply

Find out more about applying changes with Cursor’s custom trained model.

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Rules

You can direct the Agent with rules. They can auto attached to any Agent request based on glob patterns, or the Agent can grab one based on the rule description.

Read more about how you can work with rules

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Cost

You can find the cost breakdown per chat for models with usage based pricing by clicking the history icon in the top right of the chat.

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Feedback

Give feedback with thumbs up and down buttons as well as free form text. This will help us improve the quality of the output

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Layout

• Pane: A sidebar with the interface on the left and your code editor on the right.
• Editor: A single editor window, similar to viewing code normally. You can move it around, split it, or even place it in a separate window.
• Floating: A draggable window that you can position where you like

You can change this from the menu → Open as [layout]

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FAQ

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How are long conversations handled?

For long conversations, Cursor summarizes earlier messages with smaller models like cursor-small and gpt-4o-mini to keep responses fast and relevant.

This approach helps ensure that even extended conversations remain responsive and coherent, without losing track of key details from earlier exchanges.

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Can I access my conversation history on another computer?

Conversation history is stored locally on your computer and is not stored on Cursor’s servers or tied to your Cursor account.

This means if you switch to a different computer, you won’t have access to your previous history. You can only access your history on the computer where it was originally created.