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Why Cursor Keeps Forgetting Your Code (And How to Fix It)

#cursor #ai #vscode #productivity

If you've used Cursor for any serious project, you've probably hit this: you're 90 minutes into a productive session, Cursor's AI has learned your codebase patterns, understands your architecture, knows about the bug you're tracking... and then the context window fills up.

Suddenly your AI partner is asking basic questions about your project structure. The patterns it learned? Gone. The bug context? Vanished.

Why Cursor Loses Context

Cursor uses a sliding context window. Unlike Claude Code which explicitly runs compaction (and tells you about it), Cursor silently drops older messages when the window fills up. You might not even notice until the AI starts giving generic responses instead of project-specific ones.

The problem is worse with Cursor because:

  1. No warning — There's no "context is getting full" indicator
  2. Silent drop — Older context just disappears from the window
  3. No recovery — Once context is dropped, you can't get it back natively
  4. Crash vulnerability — If Cursor crashes, session recovery is inconsistent

The Real Cost

A 2-hour Cursor session where you've been pair programming with the AI has genuine value. The AI has learned:

  • Your naming conventions and code style
  • The architecture and how components connect
  • Which approaches you've tried and rejected
  • The specific edge cases you're handling

Rebuilding this context from scratch takes 15-30 minutes of re-explaining. Over a week, that's hours of lost productivity.

Solutions That Work

For immediate relief: Session snapshots

Mantra monitors Cursor's session files and creates automatic snapshots. When context is lost or Cursor crashes, you can browse a visual timeline of your session states and restore any previous point.

It's like having an automatic save game for your AI coding sessions.

For ongoing context: Project documentation

Keep a CONTEXT.md in your project root with:

## Architecture
- Frontend: React + TypeScript  
- Backend: FastAPI + PostgreSQL
- Auth: JWT with refresh tokens

## Current Sprint
- Building user dashboard
- Refactoring payment flow

## Key Decisions
- Chose Zustand over Redux for state (simpler API)
- Using server components where possible
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This gives Cursor baseline context even in fresh sessions, but doesn't replace the session-specific learning.

For teams: Shared context files

If multiple people use Cursor on the same project, shared context files in the repo help everyone's AI sessions start with better understanding.

My Recommendation

Use all three:

  1. Mantra for automatic session protection (mantra.gonewx.com)
  2. CONTEXT.md for persistent project knowledge
  3. Regular commits as code-level checkpoints

The combination means you're never more than a few clicks away from recovering your full AI coding context.

Do you have a Cursor context management workflow? Share it in the comments — I'm always looking for better approaches.

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