Cursor Context Management

Optimize how Cursor AI uses context to produce accurate, relevant responses. Context is everything the model sees when generating a response -- managing it well is the single biggest lever for output quality.

Context Sources

Cursor assembles context from multiple sources before each AI request:

┌─ Always Included ─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  System prompt (Cursor internal)                      │
│  Active .cursor/rules/*.mdc with alwaysApply: true    │
│  Current file (for Tab, Inline Edit)                  │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
┌─ Conditionally Included ──────────────────────────────┐
│  Selected code (highlighted before Cmd+L/Cmd+K)       │
│  @-mention targets (@Files, @Folders, @Code)          │
│  Glob-matched rules (.mdc with matching globs)        │
│  Conversation history (prior turns in chat)           │
│  Open editor tabs (lightweight reference)             │