Cursor Automations: Always-On AI Agents for Development

Set up Cursor Automations to run AI agents automatically on events like PR creation, issue assignment, or code push.

Cursor Automations are always-on AI agents that activate automatically in response to development events.

How Automations Differ from Background Agents

Background Agents are triggered manually. Automations activate on events like new pull requests, issue creation, code pushes, or scheduled intervals.

Setup

1. Open the Cursor dashboard
2. Define trigger conditions (PR created, issue assigned, code pushed)
3. Write agent instructions for the automation
4. Configure output actions (create PR, add comment, update file)

Use Cases

• PR Review: Automatically review every pull request with custom criteria
• Documentation: Generate docs when new files are created
• Security Scans: Run security analysis on code changes
• Test Generation: Create test files for new components
• Changelog Updates: Auto-update changelogs on releases
• Issue Triage: Categorize and label new issues

Environment

Automations run in cloud environments similar to Background Agents, with full access to your repository context.

Best Practices

• Start with simple automations and iterate
• Test thoroughly before enabling on production repositories
• Set clear boundaries in automation instructions
• Monitor automation outputs regularly
• Combine with BugBot for comprehensive code quality

The Future of Development

Automations represent the shift from interactive AI assistance to proactive AI engineering, where your development pipeline includes AI agents working continuously in the background.