🤖Step 4: Getting Familiar with Cursor

Get to know the Cursor AI panel — where the magic happens. We’ll walk you through its modes, buttons, and secret sauce for making strategy creation faster (and a bit more fun).

To open the Cursor AI panel, press Ctrl+L or click the icon in the top right corner of the Cursor IDE (see Picture #1).

Picture 1

This will open the chat interface — your command center for talking to the AI (yes, it listens — and it’s surprisingly helpful). In Cursor version 1.3.9, there are three available modes: Agent, Ask, and Background (see Picture #2).

Picture 2

Choosing Your AI Mode

Each one plays a different role in your coding adventure.

Agent Mode

Think of it as your AI pair programmer. It sees your project, suggests edits, and you can thumbs-up or thumbs-down its ideas like a benevolent overlord.

Ask Mode

Got questions? This is your safe space. Ask about code, strategies, life (well, maybe not life), and get helpful, code-savvy answers.

Background Mode

This one works behind the scenes. Cursor quietly watches your code and offers suggestions only when relevant. It won’t interrupt you — unless it has something genuinely useful to say. The real magic? You can feed Cursor extra context from your files or docs — like giving it caffeine for smarter replies.

For now, select Agent Mode.

Choosing the Right Brain for the Job

Next to the mode selector, you’ll also see an AI model dropdown. Just leave it on Auto for now — let Cursor pick the right brain for the job (see Picture #3).

But a quick tip: We don’t recommend choosing Gemini manually. Cursor and Gemini don’t exactly get along — limited context, unexpected bugs, and generally not the dream team. If you do want to pick a model yourself, go with Claude or OpenAI models. Cursor is tightly tuned for them, and you’ll get the best, smoothest experience.

Picture 3

Now that you’ve met the Cursor interface and its quirky little modes, you’re officially one step closer to AI-powered strategy greatness. Next up — we roll up our sleeves (metaphorically, unless you’re wearing long sleeves) and create your very first FTO strategy. Let’s do this!\