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Cursor triggers & prompts — cheatsheet

One bookmark for slash commands, natural phrases, and how behavior maps to your workspace.
Sanitized — no secrets, tokens, or API keys.

Publication: This guide is intended to be public-safe. Canonical backlog files in full workspaces are often private — see Public vs private Git strategy.

Slash commands (/)

Type in Cursor chat when your project defines them under .cursor/commands/. On a bare clone of this repo those files are not shipped; use the in-repo summary instead:

Human-readable summaries: ../reference/slash-commands.md

Full workspace (paths on disk): see ../INDEX-full-workspace-only.md.

Natural phrases (no slash)

In a workspace with rules and skills, the assistant may still respond to plain language:

You say (examples) What it routes to
“Journal this” / “add to journal” Same idea as /journal — today’s journal file when that workflow exists.
“Session end” / “wrap up” Same checklist as /session-end when configured (journal, backlog scan, glossary scan, activeContext).
“Glossary this session” / “capture terms” Draft Glossary candidates in the journal; promote to product-management/GLOSSARY.md when stable.
“Backlog candidates” / “scan this chat for backlog” Draft Backlog candidates in the journal (skill-driven in full workspaces).
“Use the PM skill” / “/pm” product-management context + PM_KNOWLEDGE.md when present.
“Park this idea” / “capture idea” Append to BACKLOG_INBOX.md when that file exists (full workspace).

Skill file paths (.cursor/skills/...) live only in full workspaces — see ../INDEX-full-workspace-only.md.

Glossary flow (reminder)

  1. /session-end or /journal (substantive) → draft Glossary candidates (from this session) in today’s journal — when those commands exist.
  2. Assistant should ask before bulk-editing product-management/GLOSSARY.md.
  3. Controlled vocabulary and promotion rules may live in .cursor/rules/ in a full workspace.

Plan vs Agent

Mode Intent
Plan Discuss and design; avoid repo edits until you switch to Agent or ask for execution.
Agent Implement: files, mutating terminal commands.

Details: cursor-session-playbook.md. Some workspaces use a [Build] vs [Discussion] prefix in chat to signal the same distinction.

Stable context for new chats

Long threads lose detail (compaction). For contracts (decisions, paths, backlog):

  • Attach key files with @ (e.g. activeContext.md, BACKLOG.md) when they exist in your project.
  • Deep dive: working-with-ai-context.md.
Topic Where
Onboarding catalog ../INDEX.md
Full workspace extras ../INDEX-full-workspace-only.md
Session playbook cursor-session-playbook.md
Terms sheet ../../product-management/GLOSSARY.md