Agentic Coding with Cursor
A practical course on agentic coding inside Cursor, for developers who already read and write code. Tab-complete habits do not carry over to Composer/Agent mode: accepting a multi-file agent edit is closer to merging a PR you did not read than to accepting a longer autocomplete suggestion. Built around Cursor's actual mechanism (Tab, Cmd-K, and Agent/Composer as three distinct interaction modes, .cursor/rules as durable project context, checkpoints as literal restore points, @-mentions as the explicit context surface) rather than generic AI-tool advice, with worked demos run against small, throwaway real repos.
ToolChecked against Cursor Agent mode (Composer) on 2026-08-17.
Rod Rivera
Professor
Desk
First lesson is free to preview.
What You'll Learn
- Why Tab-complete instincts fail once Composer or Agent mode is doing the editing
- Which of Cursor's three interaction modes fits a given task, and why
- How to write .cursor/rules so the agent stops relearning your project every session
- How to review a multi-file agent diff the way you would review a pull request
- How to use checkpoints to make every agent turn a real restore point, not a leap of faith
- How to feed Cursor the right context on purpose instead of hoping it infers it
- What to do when the agent gets it wrong, with a worked debugging demo
- How to keep secrets and build output out of Cursor's index, and set shared team rules
Prerequisites
- Comfort reading code you did not write
- Cursor installed, or willing to install it in lesson 2
Syllabus
Ready to keep going?
The lessons in Agentic Coding with Cursor are open. The Prof Rod weekly lesson is the next thing, not a door.
