2.2 – Cursor Mini-Project (Writing Helpful Scripts) Lesson

Lesson Overview

This lesson centers on working with Cursor’s AI-powered coding environment to build your own habit tracking app from scratch. Instead of coding everything by hand or copying code snippets between tools, you’ll see how Cursor can accept your app ideas, use popular technologies like React and TypeScript, and handle much of the project setup for you. You’ll learn why choosing supported tech stacks matters, and how Cursor’s direct file editing and command suggestions speed up the initial build phase.

Cursor’s agent mode has unique features for updating files on your behalf. Compared to other AI tools that make you manually transfer code, Cursor writes, updates, and manages project files right inside your workspace—making it much easier for beginners and fast-moving entrepreneurs. You’ll also experience a real-world workflow: launching your app, encountering errors, and letting Cursor assist you in diagnosing and resolving them.

Whether you’re new to coding or want to quickly prototype a business idea, building this simple habit tracking app lets you experience the back-and-forth between idea, code, troubleshooting, and improvement. These same practices apply in many business and product contexts, from rapid prototyping to early-stage product validation.

Who This Is For

If you want to see how AI can help bring your coding ideas to life without getting lost in technical details, this lesson is for you.

• Entrepreneurs who want to quickly prototype and test product concepts
• New developers exploring AI coding assistants
• Solo creators looking for ways to automate setup and problem solving
• Educators demonstrating real-world applications of AI in code
• Anyone interested in getting practical experience with AI-driven coding environments

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Writing helpful scripts and initializing projects with AI is most useful at the very start of a coding project or when iterating on new features. For example, you might use this approach to quickly spin up a prototype of a business tool, set up new features without extensive manual setup, or explore multiple product ideas in less time. In practice, this saves hours on setup, lets you handle errors as they appear, and accelerates experimentation—all while giving you the confidence to learn by doing.

When you use Cursor’s AI chat to describe your app, the tool sets up project files and walks you through running the necessary commands, allowing you to jump straight into building and evolving your idea rather than spending time on boilerplate steps.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Traditional coding often means manually setting up folders, running install commands, and copy-pasting suggestions from online forums or AI tools—steps that are time-consuming and easy to mismanage. With Cursor’s approach, your requests (like “build a habit tracker with React and TypeScript”) are directly converted into file changes, and commands are suggested exactly when you need them. Since Cursor creates, edits, and manages files automatically, you spend less time on repetitive setup and more on customizing your app.

For instance, if you run into a command-line error, instead of searching for generic answers, you simply paste the error to Cursor and get a tailored fix. Cursor’s direct file change interface also makes reviewing, accepting, or reverting updates instantly visible—improving both your speed and understanding.

This efficient workflow means you get to a working prototype faster, can easily iterate on design or features, and spend more energy on solving business problems rather than struggling with setup or configuration errors.

Practice Exercise

Use the steps from this lesson to create your own simple productivity app:

1. Open Cursor, create a new folder called “Habit Tracker,” and use the AI chat to request an app that tracks daily tasks with a calendar.
2. Specify technologies you’d like to use (e.g., React and TypeScript) and let Cursor walk you through running commands and reviewing initial code.
3. Experiment by running your app, noting any errors, and using Cursor’s chat to ask for help or add features (“add icons to habits” or “make the layout more like a wall calendar”).

After you’ve gone through the steps, compare how much of the process Cursor handled automatically versus what you would need to do if working by hand. What surprised you about the process? How confident do you feel making your own tweaks or debugging with AI help?

Course Context Recap

This lesson is part of a sequence demonstrating how to build and iterate on real coding projects with the help of AI assistants. Previously, you began learning how to interact with Cursor; now you’re turning those chats into a working app by letting Cursor manage both the setup and script writing. Up next, you’ll move into version control with GitHub, where you’ll learn how to save, share, and further expand your habit tracker project. Ready to make the most of these tools? Continue to streamline your coding journey in the next lesson.