What it is
Cursor is a fork of VS Code rebuilt around model-assisted editing: inline completion, a chat pane with codebase context, and an agent mode that applies edits across several files. It indexes the repository so retrieval — not just the open buffer — feeds the model’s context window. The VS Code extension surface is preserved, so most existing setups carry over.
Best for
Developers who want agentic edits and repo-aware chat without leaving a familiar VS Code environment.
Where it falls short
It is a separate editor install, so teams standardised on JetBrains, Neovim or a locked-down VS Code build have to migrate or run two editors.
Characteristics
- ide
- code-completion
- codebase-index
- agent-mode
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Continue
Open sourceOpen-source assistant you configure yourself