Cursor's Tab Function

Overview

Cursor Tab is a feature for automatic code completion. It is a more powerful tool than Copilot for suggesting entire diffs and has exceptionally good memorization capabilities.

Driven by a custom model, Cursor Tab can:

• Suggest edits around the cursor, rather than just inserting additional code.

• Modify multiple lines at once.

• Make suggestions based on your most recent changes and linter errors.

Free users get 2,000 suggestions for free; Pro and Business plan users get unlimited suggestions.

User Interface

When the Cursor only adds extra text, the completion will be displayed in gray text. If you suggest a change to existing code, it will be displayed as a diff popup to the right of the current line.

You can accept the suggestion by pressing Tab, or reject it by pressing Esc. To accept the suggestion partially verbatim, press Ctrl/⌘ →. To reject the suggestion, simply continue typing, or use the Escape key to cancel/hide the suggestion.

Each time you press a key or move the cursor, the Cursor tries to make suggestions based on your most recent changes. However, the Cursor does not always display suggestions; sometimes the model predicts that no changes are needed.

The Cursor can be changed from one line above to two lines below the current line.

Toggle

To turn this feature on or off, hover over the "Cursor Tab" icon in the status bar at the bottom right of the application.

Migrating from GitHub Copilot

Tab Improvements

The biggest difference is the way Cursor and GitHub Copilot complete code.

GitHub Copilot can insert text at the cursor position. It can't edit the code around the cursor or delete text.

Cursor can insert text at the cursor and do much more:

• Multi-character editing

• Command-based editing

In addition, Cursor keeps a history of your recent changes in the context window, so it knows what you're going to do next.

Migrating from GitHub Copilot

Since Cursor comes with GitHub Copilot by default, and you may have both GitHub Copilot and Cursor installed, we recommend turning off GitHub Copilot when using Cursor.

By default, Cursor takes precedence over GitHub Copilot, and if you want to use GitHub Copilot, you can disable Cursor in your settings.

Advanced Features

Using Tabs in Preview

You can also use the Cursor Tab in the Go to Definition or Go to Type Definition preview views, which is useful, for example, when adding new arguments to a function call. We especially like to use it in vim in conjunction with gd, for example, to modify a function definition and then fix everything that uses it at once.

Cursor Prediction

Cursor can also predict where you'll go after accepting an edit. If available, you will be able to press tab to go to the next position, allowing you to tab-tab-tab your way through the edit.

The Cursor predicts the next location and suggests an edit there.

Partial acceptance

You can accept the suggested next word by pressing Ctrl/⌘ and the right arrow key (or set editor.action.inlineSuggest.acceptNextWord to your preferred key binding).

To enable partial acceptance, navigate to Cursor Settings > Features > Cursor Tab.