Setting Up Cloud Agents

If you're a founder or early engineer evaluating an AI coding agent, you've probably tried local agents to ship quickly. A background coding agent is different: it runs on its own machine in the cloud, works on a branch, tests itself, and keeps going while your laptop is closed.

Cursor Cloud Agents are built for this. This guide walks through setup so Cloud Agents can ship work for you and test it the way you would.

Why Cloud Agents matter

Cloud Agents help you move faster without dropping quality:

• Autonomous development with self-verification (the agent can see what you can see)
• Parallel agents across branches and projects
• Shipping from Slack or your phone without tying up your laptop
• PRs with screenshots and videos, so review focuses on outcomes rather than every line of code

Getting comfortable with Cloud Agents

Offloading work from your laptop to a cloud environment takes some getting used to. Internally at Cursor, more than 40% of our PRs come from Cloud Agents, and that share is growing. The steps below get you to a working setup.

Setup in about 15 minutes

1. Connect GitHub so agents can work with your repos.
2. Start Cloud Agent setup and choose the repositories to include. An agent opens in Cursor and handles much of the configuration for you. Let it run on its own.
3. Set team defaults while setup runs: rules, secrets, and env vars the agent needs to run and test your app. Give the agent what it needs to test changes automatically, use your environment correctly, and understand how your product works. A few careful minutes here compound for every run after.
4. Use the full environment. The agent has its own computer and a full repo. It can test, take screenshots, attach videos to PRs, and finish work a local agent cannot complete unattended.

Workflows that pay off quickly

1. Slack to PR: Tag an agent in a thread. It fixes the issue and opens a PR with the conversation as context. See the Slack integration.
2. Phone overnight: Kick off a feature before bed and wake up to a review-ready PR. You can also dictate on a walk and return to shipped features and demo videos with Cursor for iOS.
3. Parallel backlog burn-down: Run parallel Cloud Agents on separate tasks while you stay in product and customer work. Ask them to keep going until the feature is shipped, and try harder tasks to find the limits.

Ready to try it with your team?

To talk through Cloud Agents for your startup, reach out to shub@cursor.com, or learn more below.