Cursor Team Setup
Overview
Onboard a Cursor team with approved identity, privacy, rules, repository access, and support ownership before broad AI-assisted development begins.
Prerequisites
- A named tenant owner, identity source, approved plan, and data-use policy.
- Reviewed repository templates, ignore rules, and owner for onboarding/offboarding.
Instructions
- Pilot with a small group using SSO/SCIM or approved identity controls and least-privilege roles.
- Publish reviewed shared rules and ignore files through source control, not untracked local instructions.
- Train members on context boundaries, diff review, testing, escalation, and account recovery.
- Review access, policy enforcement, and adoption evidence before expanding the rollout.
Output
- A governed team rollout with ownership, onboarding evidence, and offboarding/access-review controls.
Error Handling
| Condition | Safe response | |---|---| | A user receives excess access | Correct the identity/group mapping and record the access review. | | Shared rules conflict with a repository | Use a reviewed scoped override; do not disable all team rules. | | Privacy control cannot be verified | Hold expansion and escalate to the tenant/security owner. |
Examples
Pilot one engineering group, verify SSO and Privacy Mode policy, open a template repository with reviewed rules, and collect a redacted onboarding receipt. Expand only after a new user and a departed user both pass the expected provisioning/deprovisioning checks.
Configure Cursor for teams and organizations. Covers plan selection, member management, shared configurations, Privacy Mode enforcement, and onboarding workflows.
Plan Comparison
| Feature | Pro ($20/user/mo) | Business ($40/user/mo) | Enterprise (custom) | |---------|-------------------|----------------------|---------------------| | Fast requests | 500/mo | 500/mo/seat | Custom | | Tab completion | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Privacy Mode | Optional | Enforced by default | Enforced | | SSO (SAML/OIDC) | No | Yes | Yes | | SCIM provisioning | No | No | Yes | | Admin dashboard | No | Yes | Yes | | Usage analytics | No | Yes | Yes (advanced) | | Priority support | No | No | Yes | | Dedicated account mgr | No | No | Yes | | SLA | No | No | Yes | | SOC 2 report access | No | Request | Included |
Team Setup Workflow
Step 1: Create Organization
- Go to cursor.com/settings
- Click "Create Team" or "Create Organization"
- Enter organization name and billing details
- Select plan (Business or Enterprise)
Step 2: Configure Team Settings
Admin Dashboard (Business/Enterprise):
Dashboard Sections:
├── Members → Invite, remove, assign roles
├── Usage → Request counts, model usage, costs
├── Privacy → Privacy Mode enforcement
├── Models → Restrict available models
├── SSO → SAML/OIDC configuration
└── Billing → Plan, invoices, seat management
Step 3: Invite Members
Methods:
1. Email invitation: Admin dashboard > Members > Invite by email
2. Domain auto-join: Allow anyone with @company.com to join
3. SSO provisioning: Users auto-join when they sign in via SSO
4. SCIM (Enterprise): Automatic sync from identity provider
Roles:
| Role | Permissions | |------|------------| | Owner | Full admin, billing, delete org | | Admin | Manage members, settings, SSO | | Member | Use Cursor with team settings |
Step 4: Enforce Privacy Mode
For Business and Enterprise plans:
- Admin Dashboard > Privacy
- Enable "Enforce Privacy Mode for all members"
- Team members cannot disable Privacy Mode locally
- Verification: each client pings server every 5 minutes to check enforcement
Privacy Mode guarantees:
- Zero data retention at model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic)
- No code used for model training
- No plaintext code stored on Cursor servers
Step 5: Configure Model Access
Admin Dashboard > Models:
Available models (toggle on/off per team):
✅ GPT-4o
✅ Claude Sonnet
✅ Auto mode
❌ Claude Opus (restricted to save costs)
❌ o1 (restricted to save costs)
✅ cursor-small
Restricting models helps control costs -- premium models consume fast requests faster.
Shared Configuration (via Git)
Team settings that belong in the project repository:
Project Rules
.cursor/rules/
├── project.mdc # Stack, conventions (alwaysApply: true)
├── security.mdc # Security constraints (alwaysApply: true)
├── code-style.mdc # Naming, formatting (alwaysApply: true)
├── typescript.mdc # TS patterns (glob: **/*.ts)
├── react.mdc # React patterns (glob: **/*.tsx)
└── testing.mdc # Test conventions (glob: **/*.test.ts)
Commit these to git. Every team member gets the same AI behavior.
Ignore Files
.cursorignore # Shared exclusions (commit to git)
.cursorindexingignore # Shared indexing exclusions (commit to git)
Machine-Local Settings
These are NOT shared via git:
settings.json(editor preferences -- personal choice)keybindings.json(keyboard shortcuts -- personal choice)- API keys (stored in Cursor's local settings database)
Onboarding New Team Members
Onboarding Checklist
## New Team Member: Cursor Setup (20 minutes)
### Account
[ ] Download Cursor from cursor.com/download
[ ] Sign in with @company.com email
[ ] Verify Business plan active (cursor.com/settings)
[ ] Verify Privacy Mode is ON (Cursor Settings > General)
### Project Setup
[ ] Clone the repository
[ ] Open in Cursor: `cursor /path/to/project`
[ ] Wait for indexing to complete (bottom status bar)
[ ] Verify rules loaded: Cmd+L > type "@Cursor Rules"
### Learn the Basics (10 min)
[ ] Tab completion: type code, accept with Tab
[ ] Chat: Cmd+L > "@Codebase how is auth handled?"
[ ] Inline Edit: select code > Cmd+K > "add error handling"
[ ] Composer: Cmd+I > describe a multi-file task
### Team Conventions
[ ] Read .cursor/rules/ files (our AI guidelines)
[ ] Use Conventional Commits for commit messages
[ ] Start new chats for new tasks (don't reuse old conversations)
[ ] Review all AI-generated code before committing
Buddy System
Pair new team members with experienced Cursor users for their first week. Focus areas:
- When to use Chat vs Composer vs Inline Edit
- How to write effective prompts with
@context - Common pitfalls (context overflow, blind apply)
- Team-specific rules and conventions
Usage Monitoring
Admin Dashboard Metrics
| Metric | Purpose | |--------|---------| | Requests per user | Identify power users and underutilizers | | Model distribution | Which models are used most | | Fast vs slow requests | Quota consumption rate | | Cost per seat | ROI calculation |
Adoption Indicators
High adoption:
- 80%+ team members active weekly
- Average 10+ requests/day per user
- Rules files regularly updated in git
Low adoption (needs attention):
- Team members not signing in
- Rules files stale or absent
- No AI commit messages in git history
Enterprise Considerations
- SCIM provisioning: Sync users and groups from Okta/Azure AD automatically (Enterprise only)
- Audit logging: Enterprise plans include detailed usage audit logs for compliance
- Cost allocation: Track AI costs per team/project for internal chargeback
- Vendor review: Request Cursor's SOC 2 Type II report and security questionnaire for procurement