Using agent-skills with Cursor

April 13, 2026 · View on GitHub

Setup

Cursor supports a .cursor/rules/ directory for project-specific rules:

# Create the rules directory
mkdir -p .cursor/rules

# Copy skills you want as rules
cp /path/to/agent-skills/skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md .cursor/rules/test-driven-development.md
cp /path/to/agent-skills/skills/code-review-and-quality/SKILL.md .cursor/rules/code-review-and-quality.md
cp /path/to/agent-skills/skills/incremental-implementation/SKILL.md .cursor/rules/incremental-implementation.md

Rules in this directory are automatically loaded into Cursor's context.

Option 2: .cursorrules File

Create a .cursorrules file in your project root with the essential skills inlined:

# Generate a combined rules file
cat /path/to/agent-skills/skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md > .cursorrules
echo "\n---\n" >> .cursorrules
cat /path/to/agent-skills/skills/code-review-and-quality/SKILL.md >> .cursorrules

Essential Skills (Always Load)

Add these to .cursor/rules/:

  1. test-driven-development.md — TDD workflow and Prove-It pattern
  2. code-review-and-quality.md — Five-axis review
  3. incremental-implementation.md — Build in small verifiable slices

Phase-Specific Skills (Load on Demand)

For phase-specific work, create additional rule files as needed:

  • spec-development.md -> spec-driven-development/SKILL.md
  • frontend-ui.md -> frontend-ui-engineering/SKILL.md
  • security.md -> security-and-hardening/SKILL.md
  • performance.md -> performance-optimization/SKILL.md

Add these to .cursor/rules/ when working on relevant tasks, then remove when done to manage context limits.

Usage Tips

  1. Don't load all skills at once - Cursor has context limits. Load 2-3 essential skills as rules and add phase-specific skills as needed.
  2. Reference skills explicitly - Tell Cursor "Follow the test-driven-development rules for this change" to ensure it reads the loaded rules.
  3. Use agents for review - Copy agents/code-reviewer.md content and tell Cursor to "review this diff using this code review framework."
  4. Load references on demand - When working on performance, add performance.md to .cursor/rules/ or paste the checklist content directly.