Summary
Highlights
Cursor has launched 'Cursor Automations,' claiming to build 'always-on agents.' This has led to speculation that Cursor has created its own OpenClaw. The video emphasizes the importance of understanding fundamental concepts like planning, prompt design, and orchestration over constantly learning new tools, as many tools share similar underlying principles.
Cursor Automations are trigger-based cloud-run coding agents that activate automatically on events like GitHub events, Slack messages, Linear issues, or custom webhooks. These agents spin up a sandbox environment, load a repository, and run agent workflows, enabling proactive actions like code and security reviews without manual prompting. They are primarily designed for continuous monitoring and improvement of codebases.
The main intended uses for Cursor Automations include ongoing code reviews, security and compliance checks, incident response, and scheduled maintenance. The system simplifies the creation of these automations by providing a unified product where users can define triggers, select repositories, provide prompts, and choose different AI models and tools. Users can monitor the automation’s run history and observe its actions in real-time.
Cursor Automations operate within a Cursor-managed cloud sandbox tied to dev tools and GitHub repos, with access to the outside world via MCP tools. OpenClaw, in contrast, runs primarily on the user's machine with system-level access, acting as a personal assistant across a digital life. Both are not continuously 'thinking' but are event-driven: OpenClaw uses heartbeats/crons for scheduled turns, while Cursor Automations are triggered by events and spin up agents on demand.
Cursor Automations offer a unified product for defining triggers and attaching agent workflows on the cloud. Existing solutions, like cloud code with trigger.dev or co-work, require more Frankenstein solutions or specific conditions (e.g., co-work’s desktop app must be open). Cursor Automations streamline the process by making it easy to turn on and manage always-on, event-driven agents in isolated sandbox environments.
The video suggests using Cloud Code for building and testing automations due to its strength in coding and agentic reasoning. Cursor Automations then act as the 'caretaker,' easily setting up event-driven agents for ongoing maintenance and monitoring once the code is shipped to GitHub. This reflects the progression of AI in coding from suggesting to writing, and eventually, autonomously maintaining and optimizing codebases.