Neovim + Cursor — The Dual Workflow
I fell in love with Cursor for two reasons:
I can move fast. Like, really fast.
It’s way more affordable than comparable AI tools.
As a Neovim dev, this was hard to admit.
Check out the video on YouTube
Course Update: Audio
Lesson audio is here! 🎉
I’ve added AI narrations for all 96 lessons.
I even transcribed the math and code snippets.
Have a listen and let me know what you think.
No really, let me know. You can reply to this email!
Topics from this week’s video
Cursor and Neovim Workflow
Using Cursor for engineering work, integrating it with Neovim for a dual workflow.
This approach combines Cursor’s AI capabilities with Neovim’s familiar environment.
Key Cursor Features for Neovim Users
Efficient, keyboard-centric navigation within Cursor (e.g.,
Command+Bfor file tree,Command+Option+Bfor chat).Ability to add open files to the AI context.
Vim keybindings via the Vim Extension, and enabling key repeating.
Building Features with Cursor and Neovim
Persona Feature Example:
Demonstrate adding a “persona” argument to a script to influence AI responses.
Show Cursor’s autocomplete and automated code generation for argument creation, type hinting, and code propagation.
Compare manual implementation in Neovim with Cursor’s automated approach.
Multiple Grounding Chunks Feature Example:
Using Cursor’s Agent Mode and Claude 4 Sonnet to automatically modify code to retrieve and process multiple AI response chunks.
Show how Neovim’s Git diffs can be used to review changes made by Cursor.
Conclusion: The Importance of AI Tools
The dual Cursor and Neovim workflow offers the “best of both worlds.”
It provides cost-effective access to advanced AI tools.
Why not adopting AI tools like Cursor is as a significant disadvantage for professional engineers.
Talk to people. Get introduced to new people. Find the people that you think are interesting, and then ask what they're working on. And if you find yourself working at a place where you don't like the people, get out.
Jessica Livingston