_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Cursor CLI
doppelgunner wrote 19 min ago:
It is good, but I still prefer thir code editor, which is perfect for
building applications such as my new startup at
URI [1]: https://vipli.st/
ukblewis wrote 1 hour 7 min ago:
What is the benefit of this over Codex CLI?
ksynwa wrote 1 hour 34 min ago:
Why are all these coding agents being created as terminal applications?
Feels like the kind of thing that the tech industry would publish as an
electron app.
easeout wrote 15 min ago:
Shell commands and files on disk are the classic narrow waist, and
this type of tool, exemplified by Claude Code, locates a coding agent
down in that ecosystem.
Why shouldn't you be able to use the abilities of this tool as a
batch command, connected with all your other basic tools, in addition
to interactive sessions?
Cursor's chat being locked in an IDE sidebar has felt like driving
with a trailer attached. For some tasks the editor is secondary or
unnecessary, and as a papered-over VS Code fork, Cursor has a lot of
warts that you just had to accept. Now you can just use your favorite
editor.
Companies make apps but want to be platforms, so they try to put
everything in one app and help you forget about everything else. VS
Code and Figma, for example, make their own extension ecosystems
rather than connecting outward, because it makes them
platforms-as-apps and harder to leave. But a desktop task workflow
spans many apps and windows. You compose it yourself to your needs.
We are computer users more than app users.
To me as a computer user, a tool that's compact and has compatible
outward extension points feels good.
daliusd wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
Because you can script terminal app (ideally, at least you can do
that with opencode.ai) and that opens some amazing opportunities.
ksynwa wrote 28 min ago:
How and why would one script things like this? I thought the
process was basically just talking to the agent and telling it what
you want to do and reviewing the changes before they are committed.
andai wrote 1 hour 31 min ago:
Cursor minus CLI is already that.
sylware wrote 2 hours 15 min ago:
How do you make work those terminal AI prompts?
Are those for the anonymous accesses of the AI prompts?
If those are for the authenticated AI prompts, how to create a
"non-anonymous" account with a noscript/basic (x)html browsers (not to
mention I am self-hosted without paying the DNS mafia, namely my emails
are with ip literals, ofc I prefer IPv6).
g42gregory wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
Boris Cherny was a (main?) creator of Claude Code at Anthropic. He
moved over to Cursor about a month ago. I hope Cursor CLI is an Claude
Code Agent port to the Cursor. Hopefully, the code quality would be
comparable, modulo Cursor's abridged model access. We will know
shortly.
mliker wrote 6 hours 46 min ago:
He actually returned to Anthropic shortly after joining Cursor
snthpy wrote 7 hours 29 min ago:
What differentiates the CLI tools at this point and makes you prefer
one over the other?
opencode and Crush can use any model, so apart from a nicer visual
experience, are there any aspects that actually make you more
productive in one vs the other?
eagerpace wrote 9 hours 0 min ago:
I really like the IDE. It makes enough mistakes that I need to be
constantly testing and catching little errors. Iâll interrupt the
flow often when itâs going down a path I donât want it to. When
using Codex, for example, itâs doing too much in the background that
is harder to correct afterwards. Am I doing this wrong?
treve wrote 7 hours 57 min ago:
People have preferred either the terminal or chunky IDEs for decades.
Neither are wrong.
ayerajath wrote 9 hours 33 min ago:
has to be, given the hype surrounding claude code, a few of them are
using claude code just cause it's terminal based.
teaearlgraycold wrote 10 hours 10 min ago:
Iâm mostly going to use this as a convenient way to run ffmpeg.
Previously Iâd need to open Cursor and ask for commands in the
terminal there.
AdieuToLogic wrote 10 hours 39 min ago:
When I saw this, the question which immediately came to mind was:
Who would turn loose arbitrary commands (content)
generated by an LLM onto their filesystem?
Then I saw the installation instructions, which are:
curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash
And it made sense.
Only those comfortable with installing software by downloading shell
commands from an arbitrary remote web site and immediately executing
them would use it.
So what then is the risk of running arbitrary file system modifications
generated from a program installed via arbitrary shell commands? None
more than what was accepted in order to install it.
Both are opaque, unreviewed, and susceptible to various well known
attacks (such as a supply chain attack[0]).
0 -
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain_attack
adhamsalama wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
I couldn't even install Cursor on Ubuntu .
The issue still exists. Why didn't they ask the AI to fix it?
mrcwinn wrote 10 hours 55 min ago:
I went from years of vscode to "Cursor is the future" to never using
Cursor at all. Claude Code, even with new limits, is just too good. If
I were to switch to gpt-5, why wouldn't I just use Codex? I'm
struggling to understand the value of what they're presenting.
garychalmers wrote 2 hours 22 min ago:
The values is that, to use cursor, you don't need anymore to switch
your IDE (unless you were already using vscode). You can keep your
preferred IDE and run the agent in the terminal. IDE Is for humans,
agents need only a terminal for running.
LeafItAlone wrote 9 hours 6 min ago:
I find the Codex CLI to be the worst of the CLI tools Iâve used
(including, but not limited to, Claude Code, Gemini, Aider).
Thereâs something about it that makes it clunky.
Havenât tried Cursor CLI yet though.
gpeal wrote 7 hours 10 min ago:
We (Codex) shipped a pretty large CLI update today and have many
more improvements coming. Give it a try if you haven't. [1] (0.19
now)
URI [1]: https://x.com/OpenAIDevs/status/1953559797883891735
andybak wrote 2 hours 35 min ago:
> Use with your ChatGPT plan
It's asking me to buy credits but I'm already on Plus?
cadamsdotcom wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
Tried your latest version - thanks for posting about it.
Codex needs plan mode (shift-tab in Claude Code)
And Codex needs the prompt to always be available. So you can
type to the model while itâs working & have it eventually
receive the message and act on it, instead of having to Ctrl-C to
interrupt it before typing. Claude Codeâs prompt is always
ready to type at - you can type while it is working. That goes a
long way towards it feeling like it cares about the user.
chrisvalleybay wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
Thanks for mentioning this. These are the kinds of features
that are 100% required for me to even consider Codex.
tough wrote 5 hours 26 min ago:
nice! auto-updates like open code could help to not have to
remember to update
loving the animations and todos so far
also gpt-5 is just great at agentic stuff
LeafItAlone wrote 6 hours 41 min ago:
Thanks for the heads up. Iâll check it out!
I donât visit Twitter links. Why not a link to the GitHub
changelog?
Also, as an aside since you are on the team - the organization
verification is frustrating in that the docs indicate:
>You must not have recently verified another organization, as
each ID can only verify one organization every 90 days.
I champion OpenAI at my work, so naturally Iâd be the one to
verify there. But I apparently canât, because I verify for my
personal-led org. That gets in the way of me proselytizing gpt-5
based coding tools (such as, possibly, Codex CLI).
cheema33 wrote 5 hours 5 min ago:
Another +1 to this. Some of us are unwilling to click on a
Twitter link. Link to changelog would be more appropriate.
kristjansson wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
Huge +1 to this. We have two orgs at work (for separate
budget/rate limit blast radii) and had to get two people to
verify this morningâ¦
teaearlgraycold wrote 10 hours 54 min ago:
Why is Claude Code better than Cursor?
theshrike79 wrote 6 hours 49 min ago:
Claude Code has some non-LLM magic in it that just makes it better
for code in general, despite (or because of) having minimal IDE
integration.
plantain wrote 7 hours 14 min ago:
CC just feeds the whole codebase and entire files into the model,
no RAG, nothing in the way. It works substantially better because
of that, but it's $expensive$.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
The more stuff you put in the context the worse models perform.
All of them.
Larger context is a bonus sometimes, but in general you're
degrading the quality of the output by a lot.
Precise prompting and context management is still very important.
maleldil wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
That's not true. It uses CLI tools (e.g. find, grep) to find the
relevant code from the codebase.
nlh wrote 7 hours 51 min ago:
What I have found Claude Code is extremely good at is that it makes
one change at a time, gives you a chance to read the code its
changing, and lets you give feedback in real time and steer it
properly. I find the mental load with this method to be MUCH lower
than Cursor or any of the other tools which give you two very
different options: "Ask" mode which dumps a ton of suggestions on
your and then requires semi-manual implementation, or "Agent" mode
which dumps a ton of actual changes on you and requires your
inspection and feedback and roll-backs, etc.
This may not work for everyone, but as a solo dev who wants to keep
a real mental model of my work (and not let it get polluted with AI
slop), the Claude Code approach just works really well for me.
It's like having a coding partner who can iterate and change
direction as you talk, not a junior dev who dumps a pile of code on
your plate without discussion.
xing7673 wrote 3 hours 30 min ago:
I set rules for cursor that when i need cursor to make changes,
it will do it with plan-scheme-execute mode. Everything is clear
especially when it prompts questiones for you to make scheme as
you wish.
Today cursor's gpt-5-fast-high model exploits this working style
to its extend. This model gives the most detailed scheme for me
to customize and i benefit a lot.
anxman wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
+1 to this. Cursors Agent feels too difficult to wrangle. CC is
easier to monitor.
meowtimemania wrote 8 hours 47 min ago:
My company has a huge codebase, for me cursor would freeze up / not
find relevant files. Claude code seems able to find the right
files by itself.
I seem to always have better outcomes with Claude code.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 39 min ago:
Cursor and these tools evolve quite fast.
The Cursor you used a month ago is not the one you get now.
Just saying that because in this space you should always compare
latest X with latest Y.
I too switched weeks ago to Claude Code. Then between the times I
am out of tokens I launch Cursor and actually find it...better
than I remember if not on par with Claude Code (the model and
quality of prompts/context matters more than the IDE/CLI tool
used too).
JyB wrote 9 hours 46 min ago:
Because iterating multiple sessions through multiple terminals is
obviously more efficient and seamless than interacting thought a
scuffed IDE side panel ui.
fastball wrote 10 hours 53 min ago:
In my experience, it is much better at tool-calling, which is huge
when we're talking about agentic coding. It also seems to do a
better job of keeping things cleaning and not going off on tangents
for anything that isn't accomplished in one shot.
cft wrote 7 hours 18 min ago:
Opposite experience. I worked with Claude code a lot, then
switched to Cursor and then tried to switch back and discovered
that CC often gets stuck in loops. Cursor just works. It
definitely helps that I can switch the foundational models in
Cursor when it gets stuck.
benbayard wrote 10 hours 13 min ago:
I have had the exact opposite experience. Claude Code in any
meaningful codebase for me gets stuck in loops of doing the wrong
thing. Then when that doesn't work it deletes files and makes its
own that don't have the problem it's encountering.
Cursor on the other hand, especially with GPT-5 today but
typically with Sonnet 4.1, has been a workhorse at my company for
months. I have never had Claude Code complete a meaningful ticket
once. Even a small thing like fixing a small bug or updating the
documentation on the site.
Would love any tips on how to make Claude Code not a complete
waste of electricity.
alwillis wrote 7 hours 19 min ago:
> Cursor on the other hand, especially with GPT-5 today but
typically with Sonnet 4.1
You probably mean Opus 4.1; there's no Sonnet 4.1 yet.
benbayard wrote 7 hours 2 min ago:
Yes thatâs correct.
user3939382 wrote 8 hours 14 min ago:
If you donât know how to divide a problem up given a toolset
you wonât be able to solve it regardless of what those tools
are. Maybe Cursorâs interface is more intuitive for you.
benbayard wrote 7 hours 2 min ago:
The problems Iâve given CC are things that are incredibly
simple and basic. Things I knew how to fix immediately. I
would tell it the gilt to change and how to change it. And it
will get lost when the types are incorrect, or when it causes
a test to fail. It will like just delete the test.
I donât doubt I could improve my prompts but I donât have
those same prompting problems with cursor.
JyB wrote 9 hours 49 min ago:
Better prompts?
alwillis wrote 7 hours 8 min ago:
> Better prompts?
I think you're right.
People getting really poor results probably don't recognize
that their prompts aren't very good.
I think some users make assumptions about what the model
can't do before they even try, so their prompts don't take
advantage of all the capabilities the model provides.
benbayard wrote 7 hours 5 min ago:
I donât really have a problem prompting cursor with the
same models. But I have no doubt my prompts could be
improved
daviding wrote 10 hours 58 min ago:
Can you pick thinking models with this or is that implied?
GPT-5 seems a bit slow so far (in terms of deciding and awareness).
Iâve gone from waiting for a compiler, to waiting for assets to build
to now waiting for an agent to decide what to do - progress I guess :)
byronic wrote 12 hours 4 min ago:
I'm having trouble finding a use for this outside of virtualized unused
environments. Why not instead give me a virtual machine that runs this
in a confined storage space?
I would _never_ give an LLM access to any disk I own or control if it
had anything more than read permissions
ygouzerh wrote 2 hours 36 min ago:
The permissions is quite well defined, by default it will ask you for
your approval before every cli command that it will run
alwillis wrote 6 hours 40 min ago:
For example, Gemini CLI [1] can use native sandboxing on macOS. It's
just a matter of time before every major coding agent will run inside
of an operating system's native sandbox/container/jail/VM.
[1]
URI [1]: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/blob/main/docs/c...
extr wrote 11 hours 14 min ago:
Why not? Have you ever actually used these things? The risk is
incredibly low. I run claude code with zero permissions every day for
hours. Never a problem.
byronic wrote 10 hours 49 min ago:
I have (not an exhaustive list) SSH keys and sensitive repositories
hanging out on my filesystem. I don't trust _myself_ with that, let
alone an LLM, unless I'm running ollama or similar local nonsense
with no net connectivity.
I'm a few degrees removed from an air gapped environment so
obviously YMMV. Frankly I find the idea of an LLM writing files or
being allowed to access databases or similar cases directly
distasteful; I have to review the output anyway and I'll decide
what goes to the relevant disk locations / gets run.
swader999 wrote 10 hours 26 min ago:
Your obviously skilled, spending the money on a Claude only
machine would pay for itself in less than three weeks. If I was
your employer, it would be a no brainer.
byronic wrote 9 hours 42 min ago:
Make me that offer :D
Touche wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
They don't have arbitrary access over your file system. They ask
permission for doing most everything. Even reading files, they
can't do that outside of the current working directory without
permission.
globular-toast wrote 3 hours 21 min ago:
Comments like this just show how bad the average dev is at
security. Ever heard of the principle of least privilege? It's
crazy that anyone who has written at least one piece of
software would think "nah, it's fine because the software is
meant to ask before doing".
mark_undoio wrote 4 hours 43 min ago:
I'm pretty comfortable with the agent scaffolding just
restricting directory access but I can see places it might not
be enough...
If you were being really paranoid then I guess they could write
a script in the local directory that then runs and accesses
other parts of the filesystem.
I've not seen any evidence an agent would just do that randomly
(though I suppose they are nondeterministic). In principle
maybe a malicious or unlucky prompt found somewhere in the
permitted directory could trigger it?
kamatour wrote 12 hours 12 min ago:
So weâre all just waiting for AGENT.md to become the new README, huh?
Iâm ready when the agents are.
ankit219 wrote 12 hours 31 min ago:
I think CLI is a good idea for now. Next abstraction seems to be Github
PRs where someone (likely me) files an issue/feature, then I click a
button, and the agent fixes the issue/feature. Github has talked about
something similar, but surely it were a pain to figure out if it was GA
and I had access to it given so many different variations they have
called gh copilot. (PS: it exists, but not as smooth as I described:
[1] )
URI [1]: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/...
imp0cat wrote 6 hours 25 min ago:
You can already have that with Jules. It's quite impressive.
URI [1]: https://jules.google/
ribeyes wrote 12 hours 33 min ago:
i'm betting on cursor being the long-term best toolset.
1. with tight integration between cli, background agent, ide, github
apps (e.g. bugbot), cursor will accommodate the end-to-end developer
experience.
2. as frontier models internalize task routing, there won't be much
that feels special about claude code anymore.
3. we should always promote low switching costs between model providers
(by supporting independent companies), keeping incentives toward
improving the models not ui/data/network lock-in.
blueblisters wrote 9 hours 44 min ago:
> we should always promote low switching costs between model
providers (by supporting independent companies), keeping incentives
toward improving the models not ui/data/network lock-in
Youâre underestimating the dollars at play here. With cursor
routing all your tokens, they will become a foundation model play
sooner than you may think
TechDebtDevin wrote 9 hours 30 min ago:
You're allowing them to train on your code?
blueblisters wrote 9 hours 15 min ago:
The code isnât the valuable part. They know all the most common
workflows and failure modes, allowing them to create better
environments for training agentic models
postalcoder wrote 11 hours 39 min ago:
iâd respectfully bet against this.
cursor and 3rd party tools will, unless they make their own superior
foundation model, will always have to fight the higher marginal cost
battle. This is particularly bad insofar that they offer fixed
pricing subscriptions. That means theyâre going to have to employ
more context saving tricks which are at odds with better performance.
If the cost economics result in Cursor holding, say, 20% fewer tokens
in context versus model-provider coding agents, they will necessarily
get worse performance, all things equal.
Unless Cursor offers something dramatically different outside of the
basic agentic coding stack itâs hard to see why the market will
converge to cursor.
ramoz wrote 12 hours 10 min ago:
Happy to short that bet as I think agentic harnesses will be molded
along the RL training of the actual model. Tony + the suit created
together. Why Claude in Claude Code became existential for Cursor,
why cursor moved quick to go agentic and build up with OpenAI in big
header line way here.
Unless they pair up with OpenAI or Meta.
cyounkins wrote 12 hours 39 min ago:
Could anyone compare this with Claude Code and aider?
lvl155 wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
Seriously Cursor. You canât just write wrappers all your life. VSCode
wrapper and now Gemini CLI wrapper. Can you make something from scratch
for once? Itâs as if they want an exit and theyâre putting in
minimum effort until that materializes.
Rhubarrbb wrote 13 hours 42 min ago:
Does it work with local LLMs like through Ollama or llama.cpp?
rtuin wrote 13 hours 59 min ago:
It seems they havenât implemented MCP client features in Cursor CLI
yet
daft_pink wrote 14 hours 4 min ago:
Is the pricing any good?
lherron wrote 14 hours 21 min ago:
With all the frontier labs competing in this space now, and them
letting you use your consumer subscription through the CLI, I donât
understand how the Cursor products will survive. Why pay an extra
$X/mo when I can get this functionality included in the $Y/mo Iâm
already paying OAI/Anthropic/GOOG?
risho wrote 10 hours 1 min ago:
I think the complete opposite. I love the ux for claude code, but it
would be better if it wasnt locked to a single vendor's model. It
seems pretty clear to me that a vendor neutral product with a UX as
good as Claude Code would be the clear winner.
MrGreenTea wrote 6 hours 53 min ago:
Habe you tried opencode? I haven't really, but it can use your
anthropic subscription and also switch to most other models. It
also looks quite nice IMO
didibus wrote 13 hours 15 min ago:
I'm actually starting to think the opposite.
If Cursor can build the better UX for all the use-cases,
mobile/desktop chatbot, assistant, in IDE coding agent, CLI coding
agent, web-based container coding agent, etc.
In theory, they can spend all their resourcing on this, so you could
assume they could have those be more polished.
If they win the market-share here, than the models are just
commodity, Cursor lets you pick which ever is best at any given time.
In a sense, "users" are going to get locked in on the tooling. They
learn the commands, configuration, and so on of Cursor, it's a higher
cost for them to re-learn a different UX. Uninstalling and
re-installing another app, plugin, etc. is annoying.
lvl155 wrote 13 hours 10 min ago:
No, model providers are not going to let Cursor eat their pie. The
biggest cost in AI is in developing LLM models and inference.
Players incurring those costs will basically control this market.
epolanski wrote 1 hour 26 min ago:
Unless a model provider utterly and completely dominates the
scene (which won't happen, unless for brief periods of time) well
thought tools with a consistent ux and switchable model providers
have absolutely their place.
Models are commodities.
didibus wrote 10 hours 16 min ago:
I don't think we'll have more than 2 players. I think it's like
AMD and Intel, the LLM is almost like providing hardware. The
software that exposes the LLM capabilities to the user is the
layer that will be able to differentiate.
The models are just going to be fighting performance/cost. And
people will choose the best performance for their budget.
And that's ignoring how good local models are getting as well.
It's not that they'll have their launch eaten by Cursor, it's
just that they can't be as focused on user experience when
they're also laser focused on improving the models to stay
competitive.
vineyardmike wrote 13 hours 27 min ago:
I agree that cursor has to take an aggressive and differentiated
approach to succeed, but they have the benefit of pushing each lab
into a commodity.
I pay for Cursor and ChatGPT. I can imagine Iâd pay for Gemini if I
used an android. The chat bots (1) wonât keep the subscription
competitive with APIs because the cost and usage models are different
and (2) most chat bots today are more of a UX competition than model
quality. And the only winners are ChatGPT and whatever integrated
options the user has by default (Gemini, MSFT Copilot, etc).
impulser_ wrote 14 hours 10 min ago:
Because you can always use the best model. Yesterday is was Claude
Opus 4.1, today it's GPT-5. If you just were paying Anthropic you
will be stuck with Claude.
lherron wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
Yeah but I still want a general purpose chatbot subscription also.
So Iâd have to buy Cursor + something else.
I guess Cursor makes sense for people who only use LLMs for coding.
thornewolf wrote 14 hours 31 min ago:
They realized that CLI is the much better interface for these kinds of
tasks.
cheema33 wrote 14 hours 34 min ago:
My first thought was, "meh, I already have Claude Code". But then I
remembered my primary frustration with Claude Code. I need other LLMs
to be able to validate Claude Code's assumptions and work. I need to do
this in an automated way. Before Cursor CLI, I did not have a way to
programmatically ask Cursor do this. It was very manual, very painful.
But, now I can create a Claude Code agent that is a "cursor-specialist"
that uses cursor cli to do all of that in an automated way.
good8675309 wrote 14 hours 28 min ago:
Interesting, are you saying you would setup a Stop Hook in Claude
Code that calls the Cursor CLI to have it validate and prompt Claude
Code with further instructions?
macawfish wrote 14 hours 57 min ago:
Hopefully this one is as good as Claude code. None of them that I've
tried have come close yet.
lvl155 wrote 13 hours 5 min ago:
Have you tried opencode?
macawfish wrote 11 hours 0 min ago:
Yeah, opencode and crush. I'm gonna give Claude code router a good
try soon.
tsvetkov wrote 14 hours 57 min ago:
Fascinating to see how agents are redefining what IDEs are. This was
not really the case in the chat AI era. But as autonomy increases, the
traditional IDE UI becomes less important form of interaction.
I think those CLI tools have pretty good chance to create a new dev
tools ecosystem. Creating a full featured language plugin (let alone a
full IDE) for VSCode or Intellij is not for a faint-hearted, and cross
IDE portability is limited. CLI tools + MCP can be a lot simpler, more
composable and more portable.
cheschire wrote 10 hours 0 min ago:
IDE UI should shift to focusing on catching agentic problems early
and obviously, and providing drop dead simple rollback strategies,
parallel survival-of-the-fittest solution generation, etc
thehamkercat wrote 15 hours 1 min ago:
I wonder when all of them will adopt AGENT.md and stop using
gemini.md/claude.md/crush.md/summary.md/qwen.md [1] [redirect -> [2] ]
URI [1]: https://agent.md
URI [2]: https://ampcode.com/AGENT.md
URI [3]: https://agent-rules.org
calmoo wrote 1 hour 48 min ago:
The font on that RFC is aggressively squashed and aliased, why?
asboans wrote 2 hours 7 min ago:
Symlink?
stpedgwdgfhgdd wrote 5 hours 51 min ago:
The deeper problem are the custom commands, hooks and subagents. The
time has come that you need to make a strategic choice. Once you have
heavily invested into CC, it is not easy to turn to an alternative.
Side remark:
CC is very expensive when using API billing (compared to e.g. GPT-5).
Once a company adopts CC and all developers start to adapt to it at
full scale, the bill will go out of the roof.
zarzavat wrote 7 hours 10 min ago:
Never. It's a marketing strategy. Some percentage of users will check
these files into their repos, and some percentage of repo browsers
will think "what is this X.md?" Given how much money people are
spending on these things the value of having a unique filename must
be enormous.
drdaeman wrote 6 hours 12 min ago:
Itâs a marketing strategy that works here and now, but
âneverâ is a very long time. What could be seen as pioneers
claiming names today could be also seen as retrogressive
stubbornness tomorrow and lose its marketing value.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 50 min ago:
There's a reason we still call the file robots.txt by that name,
and not web-scraping.txt or search-engines.txt.
getflourish wrote 6 hours 50 min ago:
Brand asset
ako wrote 7 hours 50 min ago:
I asked claude code for a guidelines file so it would collaborate
with windsurf. This is what it proposed:
---
This project uses shared planning documents for collaboration
with Claude Code. Please:
1. First read and understand these files:
- PLAN.md - current project roadmap and objectives
- ARCHITECTURE.md - technical decisions and system design
- TODO.md - current tasks and their status
- DECISIONS.md - decision history with rationale
- COLLABORATION.md - handoff notes from other tools
2. Before making any significant changes, check these documents
for:
- Existing architectural decisions
- Current sprint priorities
- Tasks already in progress
- Previous context from Claude Code
3. After completing work, update the relevant planning documents
with:
- Task completion status
- New decisions made
- Any changes to architecture or approach
- Notes for future collaboration
Always treat these files as the single source of truth for
project state.
ascorbic wrote 2 hours 0 min ago:
You could create a CLAUDE.md that just contains:
@AGENTS.md
Still messy, but at least it means it's using the same content
Jenk wrote 48 min ago:
What about
ln -s AGENTS.md CLAUDE.md # repeat for all
?
novaleaf wrote 7 hours 33 min ago:
problem is that claude doesn't actually read those or keep them in
context unless you prompt it to. it has to be in CLAUDE.md or
it'll quickly forget about the contents
troupo wrote 5 hours 38 min ago:
> it has to be in CLAUDE.md or it'll quickly forget about the
contents
And then it will promptly forget about CLAUDE.md as well
(happened to me on several occasions)
ako wrote 7 hours 8 min ago:
I've added these instructions in CLAUDE.md and .windsurfrules,
and yes sometimes you have to remind it, but overall it works
quite well.
radarsat1 wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
Sounds like a job for a symlink
MrGreenTea wrote 6 hours 55 min ago:
Habe you though about adding a Session start hook that reads
this file and adds it to the context?
ako wrote 6 hours 15 min ago:
Not yet, but that sounds like a good suggestion.
fastball wrote 10 hours 55 min ago:
That sounds nice and I have the same pain, but not sure AGENT.md is
the right abstraction either. After all, these models are indeed
different and will respond differently even given the same prompting.
Not to mention that different wrappers around those models have
different capabilities.
e.g. maybe for CURSOR.md you just want to provide context and best
practices without any tool-calling context (because you've found it
doesn't do a great job of tool-calling), while for CLAUDE.md (for use
with Claude Code) you might want to specify tools that are available
to it (because it does a great job with tool calling).
Probably best if you have an AGENT.md that applies to all, and then
the tools can also ingest their particular flavor in addition, which
(if anything is in conflict) would trump the baseline AGENT file.
anp wrote 11 hours 13 min ago:
FWIW at least with Claude and Jules on a project I have a decent
setup where I put all of the real content in an agents.md and then
use â@agents.mdâ in CLAUDE.md. If all of the tools supported
these kinds of context references in markdown it wouldnât be that
hard to have a single source of truth for memory files.
yougotwill wrote 9 hours 46 min ago:
Same here each specific instruction file (vs code, cursor, etc.)
just says read the AGENTS.md for instructions
stonecharioteer wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
Symlinks $AGENT.md to AGENT.md in your repo.
bikeshaving wrote 11 hours 31 min ago:
Every time Iâve ever read a {CLAUDE|GEMINI|QWEN}.md Iâve thought
all this information could just be in CONTRIBUTING.md instead.
__MatrixMan__ wrote 53 min ago:
If I'm writing for a human contributor, I'm gonna have a pretty
high bar for the quality of that writing.
An agent on the other hand, one who is in that sweet spot where
they're no longer ignorant, and not yet confused... It's nice to
have them dump their understanding to
agent_primers/subsystem_foo.md for consumption by the next agent
that touches that subsystem. I don't usually even read these until
I suspect a problem in one. They're just nuggets of context
transfer.
hahajk wrote 11 hours 21 min ago:
Yes! I want an option to always add README.md to the context; It
would force me to have a useful, up to date document about how to
build, run, and edit my projects.
eru wrote 7 hours 58 min ago:
> It would force me to have a useful, up to date document about
how to build, run, and edit my projects.
Not really: our AI agents are probably smart enough to even make
sense of somewhat bad instructions.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
Not the case at all. AI agents will happily turn your bad ideas
into code.
eru wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
Non sequitur?
I am talking about LLMs figuring out how to build your
project with some bad and incomplete instructions plus
educated guessing.
yunohn wrote 6 hours 44 min ago:
Theyâre definitely not, Claude and all other agents
frequently forget the build and test commands present in
CLAUDE/etc.md for my various repos (even though most of them
were were initialized by the AI).
eru wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Whether Claude and co understand is probably not a great
proxy for whether your docs are good for humans.
yunohn wrote 1 hour 24 min ago:
Hmmm, in my experience if something like documentation
confuses the current SOTA LLMs, then it will confuse the
average developer for sure.
tyre wrote 9 hours 21 min ago:
You can include in your prompt for it to read the README!
______ wrote 8 hours 50 min ago:
Ultimately if this stuff is actually intelligent it should be
using the same sources of information that we intelligent
beings use. Feels silly to have to have to jump through all
these hoops to make it work today
dgunay wrote 11 hours 35 min ago:
I just wish the AGENTS.md standard wasn't a single file. I have a lot
of smaller context documents that aren't applicable to every task, so
I like to throw them into a folder (.ai/ or .agents/) and then
selectively cat them together or tell the agent to read them.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
You could have a python script that generates the MD file on the
fly, based on how you want to prompt the model. I think it's kind
of funny, how deep we are getting with tools instructing tools
instructing tools.
troupo wrote 5 hours 34 min ago:
Elixir has this idea with usage rules:
URI [1]: https://hexdocs.pm/usage_rules/readme.html
esafak wrote 10 hours 33 min ago:
You can put them in subdirectories like CODEOWNERS files.
URI [1]: https://ampcode.com/AGENT.md#multiple-agent-files
what wrote 8 hours 23 min ago:
>When multiple files exist, tools SHOULD merge the configurations
with more specific files taking precedence over general ones.
How is the tool supposed to merge multiple md files?
yunohn wrote 2 hours 7 min ago:
Most AI solutions make tracing the finally assembled prompt a
bit difficult.
However, if you look through the source code or network
requests, youâll see that merging just means naive
âconcatenationâ.
esafak wrote 8 hours 18 min ago:
The same way it synthesizes anything else. We're talking about
LLMs here; this is their bread and butter.
neuronexmachina wrote 13 hours 23 min ago:
I really like the idea of standardizing on AGENT.md, although it's
too bad it doesn't really work with the .cursor/rules/ approach of
having several rules files that get included based on matching the
descriptions or file globs in frontmatter. Then again, I'm not sure
if any other agents support an approach like that, and in my
experience Cursor isn't entirely predictable about which rules files
it ends up including in the context.
I guess having links to supplementary rules files is an option, but
I'm not sure which agents (if any) would work well with that.
stillsut wrote 13 hours 25 min ago:
Yeah I suspect some of these providers will become Microsoft in the
'90s type bully holdouts on implementing the emerging conventions.
But ultimately with CLI interface you have workarounds to all the
major providers read in your system guidelines. But in an IDE - e.g.
like MS had with VisualStudio - you more lock-in potential for your
config files.
Yesterday, I was writing about a way I found to pass the same
guideline documents into Claude, Gemini, and Aider CLI-coders:
URI [1]: https://github.com/sutt/agro/blob/master/docs/case-studies/a...
rapind wrote 13 hours 18 min ago:
Isn't think just a symlink?
mrits wrote 10 hours 35 min ago:
I'm at a point where I symlink differnet sets of docs to try to
focus context so much I feel like maybe I need a git submodule
with different branches of context I want. I left managing people
to now manage AI
ijidak wrote 13 hours 54 min ago:
Agree. It's all English. That's the whole point of these tools.
Why are we purposely creating CLI dialects?
irrationalfab wrote 14 hours 4 min ago:
Thank you so much for this!
prmph wrote 14 hours 10 min ago:
Yep, that's a peeve of mine. I've resorted to using AGENT.md, and
aliasing Claude, Gemini, etc to a command that calls them with an
initial instruction to read that file. But of course they will forget
after some time.
The whole agentic coding via CLI experience could be much improved
by:
- Making it easy to see what command I last issued, without having to
scroll up through reams of output hunting for context
- Making it easy to spin up a proper sandbox to run sessions
unattended
- Etc.
Maybe for code generation, what we actually need is a code generator
that is itself deterministic but uses AI, instead of AI that does
code generation.
codesnik wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
maybe symlinking will work
manmal wrote 7 hours 14 min ago:
In case you havenât seen this, you can just pipe contents into
Claude. Eg
cat AGENT.md | claude
IIRC this saves some tokens.
thehamkercat wrote 13 hours 58 min ago:
I think most of them provide an option to change the default file,
but it'll be really good if they all can switch to AGENT.md by
default
Till then you can also use symlinks
there are issues opened in some repos for this
- Support "AGENT.md" spec + filename · Issue #4970 ·
google-gemini/gemini-cli
URI [1]: https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/issues/4970#is...
troupo wrote 5 hours 35 min ago:
And then they should standardize on usage rules (an idea in
Elixir space: [1] )
URI [1]: https://hexdocs.pm/usage_rules/readme.html
ximeng wrote 11 hours 39 min ago:
[1] Here for Claude
URI [1]: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/1091
sneak wrote 14 hours 15 min ago:
When they stop getting desperate for differentiation by spamming
their brand advertising in your repo against your will.
Claude Code likes to add "attribution" in commit messages, which is
just pure spam.
computerfriend wrote 1 hour 25 min ago:
I've experimented a little with LLM agents (only Claude Code). I
definitely don't want the agent to write the commit messages (they
should be written by a human as they're for human consumption) so I
manually added the co-author trailer. It's morally correct to
provide attribution.
what wrote 8 hours 21 min ago:
Itâs not spam, it lets people know it was written by an LLM and
maybe you should look closer at it.
striking wrote 14 hours 12 min ago:
You can turn it off: [1] `includeCoAuthoredBy: false`
URI [1]: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/settings#av...
arcanemachiner wrote 3 hours 33 min ago:
5 years from now: Subscribe to the Ultra plan for the ability to
prevent the LLM from putting ads for Coca-Cola into your code
comments!
js2 wrote 14 hours 28 min ago:
That's a more obvious (but less fun) name than what I've been using:
ROBOTS.md with symlinks.
thehamkercat wrote 14 hours 21 min ago:
[1] they also suggest using symlinks for now
URI [1]: https://ampcode.com/AGENT.md#migration
risho wrote 15 hours 4 min ago:
is there a way to get it to display more information? its stuck not
doing anything and i cant tell if that's because it timed out or it is
running a script or it is thinking or what is even happening. sometimes
it just does things without even giving any feedback at all. i dont
know what it is thinking or what it is trying to do and i cant really
see the output of the terminal commands it is running. it just pauses
every once in a while and asks to run a command.
is there a way to make it more verbose?
joshmlewis wrote 14 hours 59 min ago:
I noticed it was taking awhile on the first large-ish task I gave it.
I'm assuming it was just a bit overloaded at the moment.
alessandrorubio wrote 15 hours 5 min ago:
Wouldn't be better to just use the Warp AI solution at this point?
didibus wrote 13 hours 12 min ago:
What's the difference between Warp and just opening multiple tabs in
my terminal?
buremba wrote 14 hours 39 min ago:
Only if it would work. I think they miss a big opportunity here by
(1) not caring about security at all, (2) trying to develop their own
model and only make it available in the cloud.
htrp wrote 15 hours 6 min ago:
They are all clones of gemini cli at this point?
hollerith wrote 15 hours 3 min ago:
Since Gemini CLI was released under the Apache license, a clone is
easy to make.
blitzar wrote 15 hours 8 min ago:
Pivot to CLI
cpursley wrote 14 hours 44 min ago:
There are certainly some lessons here that go beyond coding agents
(when it comes to shipping products).
jameskraus wrote 15 hours 11 min ago:
I wonder if this will support directly interfacing with OpenAI's APIs
vs. going through Cursor's APIs (and billing).
joshmlewis wrote 14 hours 58 min ago:
I would highly doubt it. Even when you BYOK inside of Cursor they
still say it's routed through their servers.
afro88 wrote 15 hours 12 min ago:
Claude Code but can use GPT-5 built in. Not a bad selling point
jasonjmcghee wrote 13 hours 55 min ago:
Claude Code can use GPT-5 via LiteLLM [1]
URI [1]: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/llm-gateway#l...
URI [2]: https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/tutorials/claude_responses_api
huydotnet wrote 15 hours 2 min ago:
and access to Cursor's background agent on the web as well, like
ChatGPT Codex. So to this point, I'm regret cancelling my Cursor
subscription already
twapi wrote 15 hours 18 min ago:
Claude Code finally has a serious competitor.
asdfologist wrote 14 hours 18 min ago:
Not sure. So far Reddit seems largely negative on Cursor CLI + GPT-5
URI [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/cursor/comments/1mk8ks5/discussion_...
wahnfrieden wrote 9 hours 21 min ago:
They are all using mid-tier gpt-5 variants (not the "-high" one
that's hidden by default, not gpt-5-thinking) and don't realize it
asadm wrote 15 hours 19 min ago:
seems pretty basic. I don't see anything unique here. I am happy with
my Gemini CLI.
amclennon wrote 15 hours 19 min ago:
At this point, there are more AI coding agents announced every week
than Javascript frameworks, but to be honest, I'm here for it.
jona777than wrote 3 min ago:
This made me chuckle. Excellent comparison. I share your sentiment;
itâs more exciting than distracting.
mirkodrummer wrote 5 hours 37 min ago:
Think how much training has been done on such Javascript
frameworks... no one stops wondering what the outcome would be. The
only fact that when I ask to create an app, without any further
detail about what to use, and it defaults on React, imo it's a total
failure whatever the agent
wilg wrote 14 hours 46 min ago:
Think how many JavaScript frameworks can be vibe coded now!
touristtam wrote 6 hours 51 min ago:
To be honest I am being positive and hopefully we'll see an
explosion of AI agent that will help iron out all the bug in FOSS
that is hosted on different source code hosting platform. Renovate
on steroid. I would work on that if my daytime job wasn't my main
and only source of revenue.
bloppe wrote 4 hours 23 min ago:
Ask a FOSS maintainer and they will not be nearly as optimistic
about AI reducing the amount of bugs. A lot of AI generated pull
requests are broken or useless and the up wasting a lot of the
maintainers' time
irrationalfab wrote 14 hours 0 min ago:
Ironically, LLMs might make it very hard for new frameworks to gain
popularity since they are trained on the popular ones.
alwillis wrote 6 hours 57 min ago:
If we're not there already, it's just a matter of time before
LLMs will be able to read and understand a framework they haven't
seen before and be able to use it anyway.
LLMs are already trained on JavaScript at a deep level; as LLM
reasoning and RAG techniques improve, there will be a time in the
not-too-distant future when an LLM can be pointed to the website
of a new framework and be able to use it.
fullstackwife wrote 14 hours 17 min ago:
The concept of JS framework which allows you to rapidly develop an
app has the same underlying vibe as coding agent
stavros wrote 14 hours 36 min ago:
Why would we create a framework to make coding easier when nobody
writes code by hand any more?
tayo42 wrote 14 hours 25 min ago:
Make one that's optimal for Ai somehow
irrationalfab wrote 13 hours 59 min ago:
Like convex.dev
kylecordes wrote 14 hours 37 min ago:
(This is an exaggeration:)
Sure, you can have your LLM code with any JavaScript framework you
want, as long as you don't mind it randomly dropping React code and
React-isms in the middle of your app.
throwup238 wrote 14 hours 24 min ago:
Itâs not a real JS framework without JSX support and Typescript
types that generate page long errors.
LeoPanthera wrote 15 hours 22 min ago:
That's funny. I was really hoping that Anthropic would make a "Claude
GUI".
pizza wrote 11 hours 41 min ago:
If I'm not mistaken, it may be feasible to build one with the Claude
Code sdk
didibus wrote 13 hours 14 min ago:
Isn't that Claude Desktop?
consumer451 wrote 14 hours 51 min ago:
In one of their Claude Code talks they said it didnât seem worth
it, given their expectation that all IDEs will become obsolete by
next year.
kridsdale3 wrote 13 hours 40 min ago:
Xcode pretty much hung up their hat this year, and threw in with
Claude.
phren0logy wrote 16 hours 1 min ago:
Holy moly. I did not see that coming, but it makes sense. Iâm
enjoying the terminal-based coding agents way more than I ever would
have expected. I can keep one spinning in the background while I do
#dayjob, and as a bonus I feel like a haX0r.
2025 is the year of the terminal, apparently?
For my prototype purposes, itâs great, and Claude code the most fun
Iâve had with tech in a jillion years.
unsupp0rted wrote 16 hours 3 min ago:
What's the benefit of this compared to the IDE? To be more like Claude
Code?
ygouzerh wrote 2 hours 30 min ago:
Actually, I think where Claude Code shines, is with the VSCode
Extension. It's a great mix between a CLI that could be used in a
bash script for automation, as well as a coding assistant.
I haven't found however if Cursor cli provides this kind of extension
nojs wrote 13 hours 9 min ago:
So you can use an IDE other than VS code.
gorjusborg wrote 15 hours 10 min ago:
Flip your thinking around for a second and consider why an IDE is
required for an agent that codes for you?
The IDE/editor is for me, the agent doesn't need it. That also means
I am not forced to used whatever imperfect forked IDE the agent is
implemented against.
dagss wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
Whenever I have to take the wheel myself the AI tab completion
makes it much smoother so I am kind of addicted to that.
Semi-automatic mode.
I would much rather use IntelliJ so perhaps my habits will change
at some point, but right now I am stuck with Cursor/vscode for the
tab completion.
stavros wrote 14 hours 35 min ago:
I don't really need an IDE, but I do need a great code review
interface.
Touche wrote 10 hours 22 min ago:
I use lazygit for that. But any diff tool you like will work.
Xenoamorphous wrote 14 hours 23 min ago:
As someone who hasnât used Claude Code yet, canât you
configure it somehow to use a different tool of your liking, or
it has to be in the cli?
stavros wrote 13 hours 32 min ago:
I end up using the VCS tooling (lazygit for me), but coding
agents really need to be integrated with this review
environment. We need an extra step where the agent will group
its changes into logical units (database models in one commit,
types in another, business logic in another, tests in another),
rather than having to review per-file.
Programming has changed from writing code to reviewing/QAing
and reprompting, but the tooling hasn't yet caught up with that
workflow. We need Gerrit for coding agents, basically.
fooster wrote 8 hours 20 min ago:
I just merge the change and review the diff. If itâs wrong
I either revert or ask Claude to fix it.
worldsayshi wrote 14 hours 56 min ago:
> why an IDE is required for an agent that codes for you
Because the agents aren't yet good enough for a hands off
experience. You have to continuously monitor what it does if you
want a passable code base.
tsvetkov wrote 14 hours 47 min ago:
Sure, but monitoring, reviewing and steering does not really
require modern IDEs in their current form. Also, I'm sure agents
can benefit from parts of IDE functionality (navigation, static
analysis, integration with build tools, codebase indexing, ...),
but they sure don't need the UI. And without UI those parts can
become simpler, more composable and more portable (being
compatible with multiple agent tools). IMO another way to think
about CLI agentic coding tools as of new form of IDEs.
imp0cat wrote 6 hours 27 min ago:
As was already mentioned elsewhere, Emacs + Magit to monitor
incoming changes is a great combo.
bangaladore wrote 15 hours 16 min ago:
Many of these companies are realizing that mainline VSCode is a moat
of sorts. I and many people I know won't use any of these that
require forking VSCode.
With the benefit that you can also pull in people who don't like
using VSCode such as people who use Jetbrains or terminal based code
editors.
jstummbillig wrote 15 hours 20 min ago:
I am so curious to know. Why is Cursor not just putting whatever this
supposedly does better into... Cursor?
anthonypasq wrote 14 hours 44 min ago:
i dont think it actually does anything better than the chat window
in the editor. its strictly worse tbh. it just lets you not be tied
to a VSCode interface for editing.im sure Jetbrains diehards would
very much appreciate this, but honestly i will find it hard to
utilize given the fact Cursor's tab auto-complete is so amazing.
jonplackett wrote 14 hours 58 min ago:
To compete with Claude code
jstummbillig wrote 14 hours 55 min ago:
They are competing with Claude Code already. The competition is
not over who can built the nicest CLI.
sblawrie wrote 15 hours 26 min ago:
You can spin up the Cursor CLI inside the terminal of your IDE of
choice and not be tethered to Claude's models.
zaphirplane wrote 15 hours 22 min ago:
Is there a better agent than the anthropic one
rvnx wrote 3 hours 25 min ago:
No
alwillis wrote 6 hours 32 min ago:
You can already use non-Anthropic models with Claude Code with
tools like Claude Code Router [1]:
URI [1]: https://github.com/musistudio/claude-code-router
NitpickLawyer wrote 8 hours 16 min ago:
Depends how you define "better". Quality/breadth of
tasks/capabilities? Probably not (TBD how gpt5 will fare,
colleagues were saying that it was better at some frontend tasks
than claude4 in the alpha/beta horizon tests).
But if you take speed/availability/cost into account, there might
be "better" offers out there. I did some tests w/ windsurf when
they announced their swe1 and swe1-lite models, and the -lite
could handle easy tasks pretty well. I also tested 4.1-mini and
4.1-nano. There are tasks that I could see them handle reliably
enough to make sense (and they're fast, cheap and don't throttle
you).
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