Cursor Launches a New AI Agent Experience to Take On Claude Code and Codex by Maxwell Zeff
While Cursor’s core product lets developers code in an integrated development environment (IDE) and tap an AI model for help, new products like Claude Code and Codex center around allowing developers to off-load entire tasks to an AI agent—sometimes spinning up multiple agents at the same time. Cursor 3 is the startup’s version of an “agent-first” coding product. According to Nelle, the product is optimized for a world where developers spend their days “conversing with different agents, checking in on them, and seeing the work that they did,” rather than writing code themselves.
I used Cursor exclusively when this whole revolution started. But it was coding only, I could not use it for general stuff. And I wanted that too, hence I loved to Claude.
But their business model is entirely dependent on the agents, and so are at a risk from price changes from them.
I don’t get their business model.
Claude Code leak exposes a Tamagotchi-style ‘pet’ and an always-on agent
Users who have dug into the code claim to have uncovered upcoming features, Anthropic’s instructions for the AI bot, and insight into its ”memory” architecture. Some things spotted by users include a Tamagotchi-like pet that “sits beside your input box and reacts to your coding,” according to a post on Reddit, along with a “KAIROS” feature that could enable an always-on background agent. Users also found a comment from one of Anthropic’s coders, who admits at one point that the “memoization here increases complexity by a lot, and im not sure it really improves performance.”
Not a good day for someone in the release team.
So after years of pain, I finally sat down last week and started to build my own. It took me about five days. I am now using the best piece of accounting software I’ve ever used. It’s blazing fast. Entirely local. Handles multiple currencies and pulls daily (historical) conversion rates. It’s able to ingest any CSV I throw at it and represent it in my dashboard as needed. It knows US and Japan tax requirements, and formats my expenses and medical bills appropriately for my accountants. I feed it past returns to learn from. I dump 1099s and K1s and PDFs from hospitals into it, and it categorizes and organizes and packages them all as needed. It reconciles international wire transfers, taking into account small variations in FX rates and time for the transfers to complete. It learns as I categorize expenses and categorizes automatically going forward. It’s easy to do spot checks on data. If I find an anomaly, I can talk directly to Claude and have us brainstorm a batched solution, often saving me from having to manually modify hundreds of entries. And often resulting in a new, small, feature tweak. The software feels organic and pliable in a form perfectly shaped to my hand, able to conform to any hunk of data I throw at it. It feels like bushwhacking with a lightsaber.
I have built similar things for myself. I also tend to ask it to create a script instead of doing the thing itself. A script or code that you have seems more than letting CC do something.
Proud Uncle Alert - Sabrina Feld by Brad Feld
This matches what I see building with Claude Code every day. The quality of the output tracks directly with the specificity of the input. “Make this look better” gives you something generic. “I want warm tones, editorial layout, and a buttercup accent color for hover states” gives you something that looks like a real design decision was made. Sabrina’s version of this was arriving at each session with strong opinions about what she wanted – gathered design references, prepared content, and a clear vision for the aesthetic.
Matches with how I used CC to build my own website - clear directions.