Cursor Agent Review Loop

A cursor agent review loop is a small, repeatable contract that ties every agent change to a scope, a handoff note, and a human check before merge. Set one up and your team ships faster without treating each diff as a trust problem. Cursor is Anysphere's AI code editor, and most teams already have everything they need to do this: scoped rules, agent mode, subagents, and MCP. The missing piece is usually the loop, not the model.

If you have ever watched a sharp agent run produce a clean diff that nobody could safely approve, you have felt the gap. The agent did the work. The reviewer could not tell what was protected, what was assumed, or what was still unchecked. That is the problem this fixes.

Split one bloated rule file into scoped rules

The most common failure is a single giant rule file that the agent reads as one blurry instruction. It follows the nearest broad line and quietly ignores the local exception you cared about.

The fix is to break durable rules into small .cursor/rules/*.mdc files with narrow globs and a short description each. That keeps the active context predictable, and it makes the rule readable to a human in seconds.

Put repo-wide behavior in AGENTS.md, then keep the Cursor-specific, file-scoped rules in .cursor/rules/. Local scope beats one flat file every time, because a reviewer can point at the exact rule that should have applied.

Give every agent run a handoff note

A cursor agent can do the work and still leave fuzzy ownership behind. The next person cannot tell what changed, why, or what still needs checking.

So end every run with a short receipt in the PR: the files touched, the assumption made, and the verification still pending. This is not extra paperwork. It is the difference between a reviewer reading a note and a reviewer replaying the whole chat.

Here is a scoped rule that does three jobs at once. It tells the agent what to protect, tells reviewers what to check, and tells future maintainers where the boundary lives.

# .cursor/rules/api-boundary.mdc
---
description: Keep API changes backward compatible and require explicit review notes.
globs:
  - src/api/**
  - tests/api/**
apply: always
---

- Do not change request or response shapes without a migration note.
- Add or update tests for every behavior change.
- If a change touches auth, rate limits, or persistence, stop and ask for review.
- Summarize the exact files changed and the verification run in the PR note.

The same operating model holds whether you use agent mode or the agent CLI. The command surface can change. The contract should not: keep the worker narrow, keep the handoff explicit, keep the review step human-readable.

Bound background agents and gate MCP connectors

Cursor background agents are great for work that can run without constant supervision, like a narrow refactor or a verification pass. They get risky when the task can touch secrets, permissions, or repo-wide behavior. Only send work to a background agent when the scope, files, and exit check are written down.

MCP connectors deserve the same caution. Cursor MCP links the editor to outside systems, which is exactly why each new server, scope, and permission path should get reviewed before it reaches a shared workflow. Review access before it spreads, and incident response stays simple.

The rule under all of this is short enough to repeat in Slack: narrow the scope before you add power.

Know which layer does which job

Teams often blur skills, subagents, and rules, then either overbuild prompts or under-specify the worker. Each layer has one job, and keeping them separate makes the system easier to teach and easier to audit.

When you can say which layer owns a given behavior, the workflow usually holds up. When that split is fuzzy, the workflow usually is too.

Common questions

• What is a cursor agent in practice? A cursor agent is the Cursor workflow that lets the editor plan and execute coding tasks with rules, subagents, and reviewable output. The version worth trusting is bounded, not open-ended. You give it one clear task, one clear scope, and one clear handoff, so the team can check the result instead of taking it on faith.

• How are cursor agents different from cursor skills? Cursor agents do the work, while Cursor skills teach a reusable method. Reach for a skill when you want repeatable knowledge that the team applies often, and reach for a subagent when you want isolated execution of a single bounded task. Keeping them separate makes the main context smaller and the workflow far easier to review.

• When should we use cursor background agents? Use cursor background agents for bounded work that can run without supervision, such as a narrow refactor or a verification pass. Avoid them for broad repo changes, secret-bearing tasks, or anything needing immediate human judgment. The boundary you write down matters more than the speed you gain, because an unbounded background run becomes a box no one can review.

• What should reviewers check before trusting agent-authored work? Reviewers should check the rule scope, the handoff note, and the verification run. Confirm the change stayed inside its declared files, read the stated assumption, and look for the test or check that proves the behavior. If a reviewer cannot defend the merge from the note alone, the change is not ready yet.

• Where does the review loop usually break? The loop usually breaks at the handoff, not the model. The agent produces a fine diff, but nobody recorded the scope, the assumption, or the pending check, so review happens by replaying the chat. Writing a one-paragraph receipt at the end of each run closes that gap and keeps the loop fast.

Start with one rule and one receipt

Pick a single sensitive boundary in your repo, write one scoped .cursor/rules/*.mdc file for it, and require a one-paragraph receipt on the next PR that touches it. Take the pattern into the related training topic and check whether a fresh reviewer can defend the merge without replaying the chat.

Further reading

• Cursor docs: agent overview
• Cursor docs: docs rules
• Cursor docs: docs skills
• Cursor docs: docs mcp
• Cursor docs: docs enterprise
• Cursor docs: changelog
• MCP docs: specification 2025 11 25