Cursor has clear strengths as an AI-assisted code editor, but it also has limitations that developers should understand before relying on it heavily. The most fundamental limitation is that Cursor is not an autonomous software engineer. It does not have true intent awareness, long-term memory across projects, or the ability to independently validate business logic. Cursor generates suggestions based on patterns, context, and prompts, but it cannot fully understand product requirements, architectural tradeoffs, or domain-specific constraints unless you explicitly describe them. This means Cursor can confidently generate code that compiles but is subtly wrong, incomplete, or misaligned with system goals, especially in complex or poorly documented codebases.
Another important limitation is context and scale. Although Cursor advertises “codebase understanding,” it cannot load an entire large repository into a single model prompt. Instead, it relies on retrieval and heuristics to decide which files and snippets matter for a given request. In very large monorepos, legacy systems, or codebases with weak modular boundaries, Cursor may miss relevant files, misunderstand cross-module dependencies, or apply changes that are locally correct but globally inconsistent. This often shows up during large refactors, where Cursor updates most references but misses edge cases, configuration files, or dynamically referenced paths. Developers still need to review diffs carefully and rely on tests, CI, and code review.
Finally, Cursor is constrained by model behavior and tooling boundaries. It depends on external AI models, which means latency, usage limits, and occasional unpredictable outputs are part of the experience. Cursor also does not replace your runtime observability, debugging tools, or system-level reasoning. For example, if you are building a retrieval pipeline that stores embeddings in a vector database such as Milvus or Zilliz Cloud, Cursor can help draft ingestion and query code, but it cannot tell you whether your recall is good, whether embeddings drift over time, or whether your access-control filters are correct. Those limitations are structural: Cursor accelerates coding, but responsibility for correctness, architecture, and production reliability remains with the developer.