What Cursor is, for a designer.
Cursor is a code editor with an AI agent built in: describe what you want in chat and it writes and edits the files in front of you. For designers that means working prototypes instead of static mockups — real HTML and CSS you can open in a browser, resize, and hand off. The Hobby tier is free; Pro is $20 a month.
Install and open a project.
- Download Cursor from cursor.com and install it — macOS, Windows, and Linux builds are available.
- Sign in or create an account; the free Hobby tier needs no credit card.
- Open a folder — an existing project or an empty one for prototypes.
- Open the chat panel and ask for something small to confirm the agent responds.
Add the two free design helpers.
Both are free downloads from this shop and take a minute each to add.
- Responsive Preview command — a /responsive-preview slash command that screenshots your page at mobile, tablet, and desktop widths and returns a pass/warn/fail layout audit in chat.
- Ghost Wireframe skill — generates skeleton-UI wireframes with consistent ghost roles, so you can block out a layout before styling it.
Run your first design pass.
- Open a page of your project — or ask the agent to scaffold a simple one.
- Run the /responsive-preview command on it.
- Read the audit: overflow, cramped tap targets, and breakpoint issues show up as warn or fail.
- Ask the agent to fix what failed, then run the command again.
What it costs.
The Hobby tier is free with limited agent requests — enough to learn the editor. Pro at $20 a month extends agent limits and adds frontier-model access and cloud agents, which is where regular prototyping work lands. If you decide on Pro, you can use this Cursor referral link for 50 percent off your first month. More detail in Is Cursor worth it for designers?
When Cursor is the wrong tool.
If you never want to see code — moodboards, visual exploration, client mockups — a design tool serves you better than any editor. And if the goal is a live one-page site rather than a prototype, a Carrd template gets there without opening an editor at all.