Let me give this a shot:

Cursor was the tool you use to pair program with AI. Where the AI types the code, and you direct it as you go along. This is a workflow where you work in code and you end up with something fundamentally correct to your standards.

Claude Code is the tool you use if you want to move one abstraction layer up - use harness, specs, verifications etc. to nail down the thing such that the only task left is type in the code - a thing AI does well. This is a workflow where the correctness depends on a lot of factors, but the idea is to abstract one level up from code. Fundamentally, it would be successful if you don't need to look at code at all.

I think there is not enough data to conclusively say which of these two concepts is better, even taking into account some trajectory of model development.

I do feel that any reason I have for installing Cursor is that I want to do workflow 1, rather than workflow 2. Cause I have a pretty comprehensive setup of claude code (or opencode, or whatevs) and I think it does everything you list here.

So, as a product engineer, you probably wanna mention why it matters that Cursor UI allows you to edit files with auto-complete.

I hope this comes off as constructive criticism, but I'm confused about what cursor is now.

Cursor is an IDE and an agentic interface and a cli tool and a platform that all work locally and and in the cloud and in the browser and supports dozens of different models.

I don't know how to use the thing anymore, or what the thing actually is.

I would switch to Cursor 3 in a heartbeat if it supported Claude Agent SDK (w/ Claude Max subscription usage) and/or Codex the way that similar tools like Conductor do

And I would happily pay a seat based subscription fee or usage fees for cloud agents etc on top of this

Unfortunately very locked into these heavily subsidized subscription plans right now but I think from a product design and vision standpoint you guys are doing the best work in this space right now

Is there going to be any more development on the frontier of cursor tab completion and features like that (more focused on helping engineer's with llm's for complex tasks) since I feel this is the main reason I dont use claude code or codex. I want to be writing the code, since I want performant, small, codebases that I understand (I am writing eBPF stuff, so agentic coding doesnt work that well)

You can use almost any model with Claude Code.

  {
    "env": {
      "DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER": "1",
      "ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "https://api.minimax.io/anthropic",
      "ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN": "YOUR_SECRET_KEY",
      "API_TIMEOUT_MS": "3000000",
      "CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC": 1,
      "ANTHROPIC_MODEL": "MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed",
      "ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL": "MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed",
      "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_SONNET_MODEL": "MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed",
      "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_OPUS_MODEL": "MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed",
      "ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL": "MiniMax-M2.7-highspeed"
    }
  }

You can do this with copilot, for the $40/mo range, AND you get to use opus 4.6 for all of it. Copilot is absurdly cheap if you can make it fit your work profile.

Yep, Composer 2 has been quite good for me too. I only turn to Opus for major brainteasers.

My man, have seen the Sonnet 4.6 tho

I mean, in that case, cannot you do the same by just using sonnet instead of opus?

That gap was closed by opencode months ago.