Work with Cursor

Use this guide when you want to run Cursor as a Conductor session, open Conductor workspaces in Cursor, keep Cursor windows easy to identify, or migrate Cursor MCP servers and rules into Conductor.

Run Cursor in Conductor

Cursor sessions run inside Conductor workspaces, so the chat, branch, terminal, diff, checks, pull request, and archive state stay tied to the workspace.

Conductor supports Cursor's Composer 2.5 for Cursor sessions.

Before starting a Cursor chat, add your Cursor API key in Settings -> Harnesses -> Cursor. You can also set CURSOR_API_KEY in Conductor's environment settings.

For parallel work, use one workspace per independent Cursor task. See Run multiple Cursor sessions in parallel.

Open workspaces in Cursor or VS Code

From a workspace, click Open In or press Command O⌘+O to open the workspace directory in Cursor or VS Code.

If the workspace is already open, Conductor focuses the existing editor window.

Name Cursor windows by branch

When several workspaces are open in Cursor, use the window title to show the branch and workspace name.

1. In Cursor, open User Settings with Command Shift P⌘+Shift+P, then choose Preferences: Open User Settings.
2. Search for window.title.
3. Set it to:

${activeRepositoryBranchName}${separator}${rootName}${separator}${profileName}

Cursor will show the branch name in the title bar, like:

my-feature — tokyo

Migrate MCP servers

Cursor stores MCP config in ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) and .cursor/mcp.json (project-level). Keep that config when you open Conductor workspaces in Cursor and want Cursor Composer MCP tools. For Claude Code and Codex sessions in Conductor, use Claude Code and Codex MCP config for those agents.

Global MCP servers

Copy your servers from ~/.cursor/mcp.json into ~/.claude.json:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "context7": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": ["-y", "@upstash/context7-mcp"]
        }
    }
}

The format is the same. Copy the mcpServers object into ~/.claude.json.

Project-level MCP servers

Copy from .cursor/mcp.json to .mcp.json in your project root:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "my-project-server": {
            "command": "node",
            "args": ["./tools/mcp-server.js"]
        }
    }
}

You can also add MCP servers for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor Composer directly. See Set up MCP servers for the step-by-step flow and MCP for scopes, transports, and syntax.

Migrate rules and instructions

Cursor uses .cursorrules or .cursor/rules/*.mdc files for custom instructions. In Conductor, use shared repository instructions such as AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, or project prompts in Repository Settings.

.cursorrules

Copy the contents of your .cursorrules file into AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md at the root of your project:

cp .cursorrules AGENTS.md

.cursor/rules/*.mdc

.mdc files have YAML frontmatter that you'll want to strip. Copy just the markdown body into AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md:

for f in .cursor/rules/*.mdc; do
  echo "" >> AGENTS.md
  # Strip frontmatter (content between --- markers)
  sed '1{/^---$/!q;};1,/^---$/d' "$f" >> AGENTS.md
done

Global instructions

Cursor's global AI rules can move into user-level agent instructions. For Claude Code, that file is ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md:

# Create global instructions
mkdir -p ~/.claude
echo "Your global instructions here" > ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md

Use the migration script

We've published a script that automates all of the above. It handles global and project-level MCP servers, .cursorrules, and .mdc rule files.

curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/cbh123/4187d4c6774a557b26ed6bcf054f42e2/raw/migrate-cursor-to-conductor.sh | bash

Or to preview what it would do without making changes:

curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/cbh123/4187d4c6774a557b26ed6bcf054f42e2/raw/migrate-cursor-to-conductor.sh -o migrate.sh
chmod +x migrate.sh
./migrate.sh --dry-run

Quick reference