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Technical articleDec 12, 2024

How Cursor Speeds Up Development at Sytex

In our experience, Cursor (https://www.cursor.com/) is not just an editing tool; it’s an active collaborator that supports us throughout the development process. Below, we share our general formula for integrating it efficiently and maximizing its potential.

The Chat as an Essential Companion

The key to using Cursor effectively is to start every new feature or fix by engaging in a dialogue through the chat. Here’s our approach:

  • Defining the objective with a user-centric perspective:
    When starting a new feature or fix, we describe the goal from the user’s perspective. This helps Cursor understand the impact of the change on the user.
    For instance, we begin by defining how a user would interact with the functionality and what elements of the interface or logic need adjustments.
  • Breaking the problem into manageable blocks:
    Once the overall objective is defined, we proceed layer by layer. This allows Cursor to understand the context and generate solutions tailored to each part of the architecture while maintaining the broader focus.
Key Tip: One Chat Per Feature or Fix

A best practice we’ve adopted is maintaining a single chat for each feature or fix. This approach offers a couple of advantages:

  • Consistent context for smoother development:
    Cursor retains all prior chat information, including discussed changes and decisions made. This ensures that as we work on different parts of the feature, the suggestions remain accurate and coherent.
  • A clear and coherent changelog:
    At the end of the feature development, Cursor can generate a detailed, user-oriented changelog. Since the chat logs the entire development process from the start, the change notes clearly reflect the impact and relevant details.
Managing Context Wisely

To enhance the quality of chat suggestions, it’s crucial to provide just the right amount of context—no more, no less. This can be achieved by selecting only the relevant files. If working on a particularly large file, focus on a specific class or method.

When dealing with large files, Cursor might get confused and apply changes elsewhere. The solution in such cases is to manually copy and insert the chat suggestions.

Customization Through Cursor Rules

Cursor includes a powerful feature: customizable rules. These rules act as a prompt that is automatically injected into every chat, defining how the AI should behave or interpret the project’s objectives.

  • Rules aligned with team or project needs:
    You can include guidelines such as coding standards, design conventions, or specific testing approaches. For instance, if a project prioritizes performance optimization, you can set a rule for Cursor to suggest implementations with that focus.
  • Practical Example:
    In a project requiring exhaustive testing, you could define a rule that prioritizes generating code along with well-structured unit tests. This saves time and ensures quality at every stage of development.
Refactoring and Continuous Validation

Beyond generating code, Cursor is also valuable for refactoring and validation tasks:

  • When an implementation becomes complex, you can ask it to split functions, simplify logic, or suggest improvements following best practices such as SOLID or DRY principles.
  • You can use it to generate and validate unit tests, ensuring full coverage of the functionality.
The Result: Accelerated and Efficient Development

The impact of Cursor is evident in the speed at which a developer can progress in their work. By using it daily, we notice how development becomes much faster and more fluid. Cursor reduces the time needed to develop features, refactor code, and fix bugs, allowing us to focus our energy on what truly matters at Sytex: creating a product our users love.

We’ll continue learning how to use Cursor and other AI tools more efficiently and unlock their full potential!

Pablo Acuña

Sytex Full-Stack Product Developer

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