Setting Up Cursor + Claude for Modern Development

Writing code in 2026 is a fundamentally different experience than it was when I last did it full-time. The most striking change? AI is not a co-pilot — it’s the platform.

The Setup

I’m using Cursor with the latest models. Here’s what I’ve learned in my first week:

What’s Amazing

• Tab completion is supernatural. It doesn’t just complete lines — it completes intent. Write a function name and it infers the implementation.
• Natural language refactoring. “Extract this into a hook” — done. No more manually pulling apart functions.
• Context-aware chat. The AI knows your codebase. Asking “how is authentication handled?” gives you a grounded answer.

What’s Tricky

• Prompting is a skill. You don’t just ask for code — you need to provide constraints, style preferences, and architecture context. I’m learning to write good prompts the way I learned to write good PR descriptions.
• Verification is still on you. AI code compiles but might be subtly wrong. Testing isn’t optional — it’s more important than ever.
• Over-reliance is real. It’s tempting to let the AI do everything. But I need to understand what it’s generating.

My Prompting Framework

Role: "You are a senior TypeScript engineer..."
Context: "We use React 19 with Next.js 15..."
Task: "Create a hook that handles..."
Constraints: "Must handle error cases, loading states..."
Format: "Return the hook file and a usage example."

This structure — Role, Context, Task, Constraints, Format — has been a game-changer.

The Feeling

There’s an uncanny valley moment when you watch code appear that you would have written, but faster. It feels like cheating. But it’s not — it’s just the new baseline.

I’m documenting this journey because I want to remember what it felt like to be a beginner again.