Cursor AI Beginner Tutorial 2026 (Best AI for Coding)

Key Takeaways

So, here is the Cursor AI tutorial for beginners. First up, let's head over to cursor.com. And as you can see, I'm already here. On the top of the page, you will get to see options like features, enterprise, pricing, and resources. Let's check out the pricing page. Over here, you will get to see all the available plans that they offer, starting with hobby, pro, pro plus, and ultra. You can also select between monthly and yearly plans. Further down, you have the option for Bugbot add-ons. For now, let's click on download on the top right corner. As you can see, cursor is available for Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. Since I'm using Windows, I will select my version. After that, cursor will start being downloaded. And once it finishes downloading, just open up the file. After that, just accept the agreement. Then click on next. Now just set up cursor like you normally would. From this page you can select any additional tasks you want. Then click on next. Now just click on install and cursor will get installed onto your computer. Now once done click on finish. So as you can see cursor has now opened. Click on continue and this is what you will get to see. Click on open project and you can create a new folder for your new project. After that you will get to see something like this. This is your new cursor project. On the left side you will get to see all the folders and files available on your computer but we won't be needing that for now. On the right side you will get to see this chat box where you can put in your command for cursor to follow. You can choose agent, ask and more depending on your purpose and also select auto for which model you want to use. You can keep it on auto or choose from any of these models available depending on your needs. I'll set it on auto and ask it to create a new Nex.js project for my website and then just run the command. After that, it will start planning for your new project. As you can see, it's now asking to run a command. All you need to do is click on run which is this blue button. After that it will automatically run the code. Now it will prompt you to run another command. Same way just click on run again to run it. Cursor will automatically run these on your computer and you will not have to do it manually. All you'll need to do is click on run each time. It will show you exactly what is running. So, if you're familiar with coding, you will know exactly what they are. But if not, it's okay. You can just keep pressing run and it will do the rest. At times, you may not have some elements or dependencies downloaded on your device, so it will prompt you to download them and all you need to do is press run for those as well. Keep in mind that this process takes quite a while and a lot of people using cursor may not have much knowledge about coding. So you don't need to worry about what's happening because it's running based on your command. And also to make it more efficient, you can go over to this button that says use allowed and choose run everything and skip clicking on run because it will now automatically run all the commands without you having to click on run over and over again. But keep in mind that sometimes it may cause some issues, but that is a rare case. If you're not familiar with coding, you can just put it on auto. That way, the whole process will be more efficient and easier for you to get through. But if you are a dev or know exactly what's happening, you can check through each one manually. So, as you can see, my files are now ready. I can go through each of these files and click on the accept button to accept the codes it has prepared. You can accept them one by one or just click on keep all. If you click on files on the bottom, you'll be able to choose any file that you want. And as you can see, the codes for that file appears on the main screen. This way, you can click through different files and the codes for that file will appear. You can also use the search bar on the bottom to make any changes to your code or ask cursor any questions that you might have. So, let's select ask. And then you can ask questions or add commands specifically for individual files if you want. You can also choose which model to use or just keep it on auto. Also, if you type in at, you will get to see all of these options to choose from. And since we have styles.css selected, it appears on the top. Let's click on it and it will be added on the chat box. After that, we just need to put in our command. For example, I can ask it to make it more unique. So, let's just type it in and press enter. After that, cursor will analyze the file and start reviewing, planning, and structuring your design. It will then make new changes to your existing design and make it unique. Now, to apply these changes, just switch the mode to agent and ask it to apply the changes. So, I will type it in and run the command. After that cursor will automatically start making the edits and changes to your code. It has now made all the changes we had asked it to make. You can look through the text to get a better understanding. That is if you understand what they mean. And here you can click on undo if you want to undo the changes or click on keep. You can also click on review changes if you want. For now I'll just select keep. And as you can see the code has changed. You can look through the code to see what changes were made. And if you have further questions about this code, you can always ask cursor to explain it to you and it will explain all the changes that were made. Now let's select another file. For example, index.html. Over here on the main screen, if you want to make changes manually, you can select any part of the code that you want. And just to show you guys as an example, let's go ahead and select this part. After that, if you right click on it, you will get an option to edit in file. Click on it. So over here, you can start editing the code manually. One more thing about cursor is that it makes coding so much more efficient and faster. If you type in any letter or sequence, it will give you options to choose from. And all you need to do is select from the options. You don't need to type in the codes manually. This way you can go through the codes and choose from the options that cursor provides. Coders love cursor because of this feature. It will figure out your next steps and make suggestions based on that. As an example, let's try out changing this text. Let's remove this text right over here. And after that, I will start typing mod. And as you can see, the suggestion appears on the bottom. Just click on it and it will be applied onto your code. And here it says to press tap in order to make relevant changes on other parts of the code. And as you can see after pressing tap the changes were made on the top part of the code as well. Keep in mind that there are a lot of shortcuts that you can use on cursor. If you're using it on a regular basis they might come in handy. Once you're done just go over to file on the top left corner and save your project. After that, you can just open your project folder that you've created on your computer. For this one, since it's a web page, let's open up the index. And as you can see, our web page is created. This is what we just created using cursor AI. You can click through the buttons and they will be functional. And that's it. That is the cursor AI tutorial for beginners.