Skip to content
Marginal

Cursor

Cursor is an AI code editor with a terminal agent, cursor-agent, that reads the same files. Its rules are .mdc files in .cursor/rules; it also reads AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, and several other agents’ skill and sub-agent folders.

Select it in Settings ▸ AI ▸ Coding agent.

What Marginal lists

Section titled “What Marginal lists”
Section In the workspace In your home folder
AGENTS.md AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md, in the root and in any subfolder; the legacy .cursorrules at the root —
RULES .cursor/rules/**/*.mdc, in the root and in any subfolder ~/.cursor/rules/**/*.mdc
SKILLS .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md and .cursor/skills/*/SKILL.md in the root and in any subfolder; .claude/skills and .codex/skills at the root ~/.agents/skills, ~/.cursor/skills, ~/.claude/skills, ~/.codex/skills
AGENTS .cursor/agents/*.md, .claude/agents/*.md, .codex/agents/*.md or *.toml ~/.cursor/agents, ~/.claude/agents, ~/.codex/agents
COMMANDS .cursor/commands/*.md ~/.cursor/commands/*.md

Cursor has no environment variable that moves ~/.cursor, and no instruction file in the home folder: user rules are kept in Cursor’s settings and synced with your account, not on disk.

Only .mdc files count as rules. A plain .md in .cursor/rules is ignored by Cursor, so Marginal does not list it there. Rules keep their file name, with the folder in front for nested ones: packages/api/api.mdc.

How Cursor uses these files

Section titled “How Cursor uses these files”
  • Rules are .mdc files with a front matter description, globs, and alwaysApply. A rule is applied always, when its description fits, when a file matching its globs is in play, or only when you mention it. Rules folders inside subfolders are discovered everywhere, matching the editor and the CLI. Team rules from the dashboard rank above project rules, which rank above user rules.
  • AGENTS.md in a subfolder is combined with the ones above it, the more specific winning. CLAUDE.md at the root is read the same way and is always applied. .cursorrules is legacy and will be deprecated; the documentation suggests moving its text into an always-apply rule.
  • Skills are SKILL.md folders with name and description, invoked with /. .agents/skills is checked first, then .cursor/skills; the Claude Code and Codex folders are read for compatibility. A skill folder may sit one level down inside a category folder.
  • Subagents are markdown with a front matter name, description, model, readonly, and is_background. .cursor wins over .claude and .codex on a name clash, and project over user.
  • Commands are one markdown file per command, the file name being the command, the body the prompt. Cursor is steering commands into skills; /migrate-to-skills converts them.

The .claude and .codex folders may depend on Cursor’s “Include third-party plugins, skills, and other configs” setting.

Not listed

Section titled “Not listed”

.cursor/hooks.json, .cursor/mcp.json, .cursor/permissions.json, .cursor/sandbox.json, .cursor/worktrees.json, .cursor/environment.json, .cursorignore and .cursorindexingignore, .cursor/cli.json, ~/.cursor/cli-config.json, plugins, and the enterprise hooks under /Library/Application Support/Cursor, /etc/cursor, or C:\ProgramData\Cursor.

Checked against the Cursor documentation on 1 September 2026.