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2 min lesson

A tight prompt fences the build

Say what this means in practice: "Now run the walkthrough: write the bounded prompt and keep the build inside components/search."

Step 1 of 2

The job: Cursor produces a plan grounded in actual files, constraints and checks. Start with this check: The plan cited real files and flagged at least one open question or discrepancy. Keep it small enough to check the result yourself instead of taking the summary on trust.

The prompt is the review

0:38 · narrated
Read this demo as text
  1. Okay, compose the request. The tight prompt names the change, scopes it to the file components/search, and fences the filter logic. The build can only be as big as that allows.
  2. Hit send. Planned as prose, built, done. No dangling question. And the files card stops at three.
  3. Three files, all inside the file components/search. And the file searchFilter.ts? Not one of them. The boundary you wrote is the boundary that shipped.
A tight prompt fences the build — three files inside components/search, filter logic untouched.

Practice next: Now run the walkthrough: write the bounded prompt and keep the build inside components/search.

Simulated Cursor 3.12 (macOS, light) — beta educational reconstruction, not the real product.