Define the rules, shape the memory

Software Development with Cursor

Francesca Donadoni

AI Curriculum Manager, DataCamp

Cursor Rules

rules in cursor

Types of Cursor Rules

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📄 Project Rules: .cursor/rules, scoped to your codebase
👤 User Rules: apply across all our projects
🤝 Team Rules: shared standards managed from the dashboard
🤖 AGENTS.md: markdown-based agent instructions for lightweight configuration

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Rules provide persistent context

Types of Cursor Rules

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📄 Project Rules: .cursor/rules, scoped to your codebase
👤 User Rules: apply across all our projects
🤝 Team Rules: shared standards managed from the dashboard
🤖 AGENTS.md: markdown-based agent instructions for lightweight configuration

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Rules provide persistent context ➡️ helping to get consistent results

Nesting Rules

nesting rules

Best practices of defining rules

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🎯 Focused and actionable

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✂️ Large rules split into smaller ones

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💡 Clear examples to guide the AI assistant

Defining Agent instructions

the agents.md file

Memory in Cursor

Memory:
- Automatically picks up preferences
- Stores key details to maintain consistency

memory in cursor

Cursor settings

rules and memories

How are memories created?

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👁️ Sidecar observation:
- Background model
- Extracts useful details from our chats and suggests them as memories

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🛠️ Tool calls:
- Agent saves memories directly
- When asked or when it detects important details

Less repetition, more creation

Rules + Memory ➡️ An assistant that codes like you do

rules and memory input to Cursor

Let's practice!

Software Development with Cursor

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