Open Cranes

Cursor

Add Cranes to Cursor with one link from Cranes, or with the Cranes plugin, which also keeps your skills in each session.

What you get

There are two ways to add Cranes to Cursor:

With the plugin Connection only
Your thinking when you type @cranes Cursor’s agent calls Cranes, guided by a rule the plugin adds Cursor’s agent calls Cranes when you ask
Your Cranes skills Copied into Cursor at the start of each session Come in with your thinking when they fit
Reading and changing your thinking from the chat Yes Yes
Saving When you ask, or say yes to an offer When you ask, or say yes to an offer

Unlike Claude Code and Codex, Cursor can’t add your thinking before the agent starts, so even with the plugin the agent itself calls Cranes when you ask. Cursor 2.6 and later can also show Cranes’s reader in the chat.

Set up

Connection only.

  1. In Cranes, choose Use in other AIs in the sidebar.
  2. Under Add an AI, on the Cursor card, choose Add to Cursor. Cursor opens and asks to add Cranes.
  3. Accept.

Or add it by hand in .cursor/mcp.json for one project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json for all of them:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cranes": { "url": "https://usecranes.com/connect/mcp" }
  }
}

With the plugin. It comes from Cranes’s public plugin repository, cranesintelligence/plugins, and includes the connection.

  1. In a terminal, run:

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cranesintelligence/plugins.git ~/.cranes/plugins
mkdir -p ~/.cursor/plugins/local
cp -R ~/.cranes/plugins/cursor/cranes ~/.cursor/plugins/local/cranes

  2. Restart Cursor.

Copy the folder rather than linking to it. On Cursor’s Teams and Enterprise plans, Allow Local Plugin Imports has to be on, or a team admin can add cranesintelligence/plugins as a team marketplace instead. To update later, run git -C ~/.cranes/plugins pull and copy the folder again.

Sign in

Each sign-in opens Cranes in your browser. Check what it may use, choose whether to Keep my own ideas, and choose Allow.

  1. For the connection: the first time Cursor uses Cranes, it asks you to sign in. You can also do it from Cursor’s MCP settings.

  2. For your skills (plugin only): in a terminal, run:

    python3 ~/.cursor/plugins/local/cranes/scripts/cranes.py login

    This sign-in is shared on your computer with the plugins for Claude Code and Codex, and shows under Use in other AIs as Cranes for coding agents.

What’s automatic, and when you ask

  • Your thinking comes in when you ask. Type @cranes, or ask what your thinking says. @cranes on its own checks the work in front of the agent. The agent shows what Cranes guided and where each part came from.
  • Your skills (plugin only). At the start of each session, your Cranes skills are copied into ~/.agents/skills as cranes- plus the skill’s name. A copy you edit is never overwritten; the agent offers to save your edit back to Cranes. A skill copied in as Cursor starts may show up only in your next session. If you also use the Claude Code plugin, a skill can appear twice, because Cursor reads Claude Code’s skills too.
  • Saving waits for your yes. Ask the agent to save something, or say yes when it offers.
  • To skip typing @cranes in a repository, add the line under Have your AI use Cranes on its own on Use in other AIs to its AGENTS.md or Cursor’s rules.

See When Cranes comes in.

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