Unlocking Cursor AI: Top 8 Hidden Features

[@dougk77]

I love that you're putting content like this out there. Totally agreed that there are too many videos of people showing off making a little app with Cursor but hardly anything on real world developer use of it on a reasonable sized codebase, and the entirely different way you'd need to use it to be effective. Thanks so much for sharing these!

[@LexiconEcho]

I have been in IT Infrastructure for a long time, this video is the bible for becoming proficient at the Cursor AI tool. Great work Yifan!

[@YifanBTH]

This is the first video in a series of deep dives into AI tools. Are they all worth the hype? Let’s find out.

[@mariusirgens5555]

Please make more on Cursor 🎉 Very cool video!

[@IncomeMenu]

Subscribed. I've seen a ton of videos on ai coding and cursor ai and i can tell this is one of the most genuine videos I've seen. Most of them are clickbaits. Hoping the KZbin algorithm finds you.

[@YifanBTH]

Welcome onboard!

[@chongdashu]

Mate, I thought I knew how to use Cursor -- but this video is a gold mine

[@DavitBarbakadze]

Thumbs up for showing how to reference files in Notepads! Not obvious at all.

[@MikeeBuildstech]

Thanks for the video! Your first one was a banger! Congrats on the success!

[@pablovillarroel6582]

Great video man! I've been using Cursor for like a year, and there were many features I didn't know about. Keep up the good work!

[@YifanBTH]

It sometimes amazes me how bad cursor's own documentation is given all the awesome features they've build!

[@VictorKushnerov]

Straightforward and informative! The video highlights hidden features of Cursor AI and offers great tips to boost productivity when working with AI. I’m looking forward to more reviews of similar tools in the future. Highly recommend for anyone using this tool!

[@YifanBTH]

@@VictorKushnerov thanks for the support man. I’m still discovering new features even after months of usage. cursor is chucking out update fast than ever. Expect more similar content in the future!

[@therobotocracy]

Keep going man! More cursor in production!

[@larsh5853]

Great video! It helped me to better understand Notepads and how documentation on for example API's can be referenced in Chat or Composer using @Docs and also that these references are automatically added to Docs in Cursor Settings > Features > Docs so they are availbale in other projects. I also got a good intro to Save all vs Accept all, a nice tip on why using diff in the Composer control panel is nice, and the importance of source control with frequent commits. In regards to managing frequent iterations to code, the "checkout" feature in composer is also quite nice, especially when you regret an Accept all in Composer and want to go back to the code you have before.

[@yacn]

where do i find this checkout feature?

[@larsh5853]

​ @yacn The checkpoint feature is available when you use Cursor Composer. Composer is the feature that allows you to modify multiple files at once or generate new files to create entire applications. 1. Open Composer with this keyboard shortcut: CMD + i (MacOS) or CTRL + i (Windows). 2. Now ask Composer to perform a task. Hit enter. 3. Scroll up and you will see a small text saying: "Checkpoint 0 saved. checkout" 4. You can click on "checkout". It is a link and it will reset all files until that point in the conversation. One thing I dont understand is that Cursor don't provide any menu items where the different ai panels can be manually activated/deactivated. It is all through keyboard shortcust. Quite confusing.

[@yacn]

@@larsh5853 Thank you!

[@stevenfullman5646]

This is great and very useful to see real world benefits from a fellow developer (not just the no-code KZbinr’s)

[@YifanBTH]

Thanks man, that's exactly the vibe that I was aiming for. More videos on the way.

[@m.f.mfazrin8720]

Very good video Please keep posting Cursor IDE related videos even more♥

[@Got_It_From_Ebay]

Great video, Yifan. Was looking for an explanation of how to use notepads and also learned about the whole docs thing. Very much appreciated!!

[@YifanBTH]

I'm surprised that Cursor doesn't even document this feature in their websites, its so powerful

[@RokStrnisa]

Very useful, thanks! Looking forward to more content.

[@ai-niinja]

Looking forward to the next one! Well done

[@valentinerontez627]

Thanks for teaching me the save and accept difference! Truly game changing for me at least, keep going! New subscriber here

[@YifanBTH]

It's super useful during the experimentation stage. I still find it strange why Cursor doesn't document all of these great features.

[@vaishaknarayanan7321]

Great video. Worth watching. Please create more content on where to find NextJs templates so that we can customise to our use cases

[@YifanBTH]

Glad you enjoyed the video! I've just been building on top of the default NextJs template generated from `npx create-next-app@latest [project-name] [options]`. Is there any specific use cases you are looking for perhaps I can suggest alternatives?

[@jayhu6075]

What a great explanation about this topic. Many thnx.

[@paullopez_ai]

Great first video!

[@YifanBTH]

Appreciate the support. Just published the second video, do check it out.

[@tesfayebeyene3030]

Great content!

[@iRazvan2745]

You deserve more subscribers

[@YifanBTH]

Thanks man, great to have your support. Just started working on this channel, stay tuned for more!

[@MH-xx6df]

Brilliant. More please

[@hamishirving8813]

Great vid, would be cool if you could do a video on how you're using notepads, is something I'm just getting started with

[@YifanBTH]

You can check out my other cursor videos, specifically in kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXmXmYBmfcSKhsk

[@bingers_tv]

Great video - thanks

[@dawid_dahl]

Very good video! Subbed.

[@adelsondearaujo2265]

Great video!!

[@calumyuill]

Awesome video, thank you, subscribed! Would you be up for sharing the custom rules you are using on top of the typescript template?

[@YifanBTH]

Welcome onboard! The custom rules I add are generally tailored to each codebase outlining the following: - specific library usage beyond the standard set - db usage pattern - requiring test generation when implementing complex functionalities - directory patterns say for the lib/ folder Hope that helps.

[@matthiasrau9289]

Thank you 🙏

[@YifanBTH]

welcome!

[@chat-jpt]

what advantage is there using the notebook vs storing those instructions in a md file in your project and referencing them (so you can commit them)?

[@YifanBTH]

It's the capability to define the focused files so that Cursor knows to pull the files into context whenever a relevant notepad is called. I think we can probably combine the approach where the body of Notepad just directly references the .md so that you only need to specify the focused files in the UI.

[@AKMALKHASANOV-h7m]

I could not find the custom instructions file. every time I open a new chat or new composer, it does not obey my previous instructions.

[@YifanBTH]

The instructions file needs to be manually created that sits at the root of your repository. Say for cursor it's.cursor_rules. You can also set it in the cursor settings, but I prefer to version it together with my Git repository.

[@mrprofessor2]

I liked these tips but i am specifically looking for "a feature where i don't have to type @docs -> @nextjs to use latest docs everytime " bcz everytime i don't type explicit mention of docs it uses the old code structure not the latest

[@YifanBTH]

the @docs feature is indeed extremely helpful for recent framework releases. sadly, you can't bake that into the rules file or notepad just yet.

[@thienthuanme]

Hey, how to bring up notepads? Seem like you using keyboard shorcut when implementing. I didn't see notepads elsewhere in the edior?

[@YifanBTH]

You can bring up the composer using cmd+shift+i or ctrl+shift+i (windows). Notepad will be on the top left. Just make sure you are also on the latest version of cursor.

[@thienthuanme]

@@YifanBTH Thanks you

[@eussam]

great, thanks for the tips !, starting with Cursor here. I'm on Mac but I can't seem to have en enlarge view of Composer, CMD-SHIFT-I does not do anything on my comp, any idea ? thanks :)

[@YifanBTH]

Sadly, Cursor removed that feature, so they only have the sidebar composer now. Not sure why they did that. I much prefer the previous UX.

[@eussam]

@@YifanBTH oh ok, thanks for taking the time :)

[@cyberluke]

Can you recommend Speech To Text extension for Cursor/VSCode or Windows 11 so you can dictate instead of typing prompt? (useful for longer design spec prompts)

[@YifanBTH]

I use a tool called Flow AI for doing speech dictation when working with AI. Give that a try!

[@antoniofuller2331]

If I constantly give the @codebase to the AI, will it help me save on flow action credits????

[@YifanBTH]

Unlikely. Even with @Codebase flow action, it's still used to analyze individual files and create outputs, so don't think too much about it.

[@Yotrek]

What’s the link to your community of AI builders?

[@YifanBTH]

I haven't created one just yet. Out of interesting, what's the type of content that you'd like to see in the community?

[@Yotrek]

@@YifanBTH oops. I must have seen one in another recent video. Basically a learn to code in 2025…..what is in your videos but in text form, so we can follow the steps. You have the knowledge and the ability to convey it. If I find the link to the community I’ll reply to this comment.

[@YifanBTH]

@@Yotrek great suggestion. The text form is way more friendly for future reference as you don’t need to skip back and forth. Will look into it once I get more content into the channel.

[@Kusanaki]

Cool video. Why didn't you edit out the 'funnily enough' part? Haha.

[@YifanBTH]

Perhaps I left it in just to prove that I'm not an AI, haha. Jokes aside, this is why you shouldn't be editing videos after 12AM.

[@hungerbulb]

Hi which models do you recommend using?

[@YifanBTH]

sonnet-3.5 (new) is the best one atm

[@sukhpalsukh3511]

Please create video on using commit feature. Version Control.

[@YifanBTH]

In the pipeline ;)

[@Ivcota]

I thought the embeddings were stored on Cursor's servers?

[@YifanBTH]

Thanks for pointing this out, you are absolutely correct. I've added a correction to the video. The embeddings are stored on the cursor server but your source code is always local.

[@Ivcota]

@@YifanBTH awesome video and I know you’re posting the best quality content if you’re doing due diligence like this 🙏

[@gillesashley9314]

Now there is the "Notepad" feature, which is better than .cursorrules. But still in Beta though.

[@YifanBTH]

Yeah, I do like the notepad feature. It's been around since August. The one thing I dislike about it is that it's not automatic - you have to manually include it in the prompt every single time. So, if Cursor builds in auto-routing for the relevant notepad, that would be amazing. Also, I'd love to see it being committed in the codebase like the Cursor rules file.

[@PartneredAdmin]

Platinum!

[@optimyse]

Gold 🪙