2 min lesson
The decision tree the field team actually uses
Start at the first move in "The decision tree the field team actually uses" and carry it through to the proof.
Step 1 of 2
The decision tree the field team actually usesAuto first, then thinking vs non-thinking, then traits
When an engineer asks "which model should I pick?", hand them an order of operations. Auto is Cursor's routing default and the usual daily driver. Cost mode is classic Auto, and it's the only mode on individual plans; Teams and Enterprise can switch on Cursor Router, which adds Balance and Intelligence modes. The Plus plan has no Auto at all. You only turn Auto off when you need a specific model's characteristics for the task in front of you.
"Typically I'm going to use auto mode as my daily driver. It dispatches your prompt to a short list of frontier large language models based on models that have open capacity at the time."
- 1Start with Auto. Let Cursor route the task. For most everyday work the choice doesn't matter enough to spend attention on it.
- 2Turn Auto off only for a reason. You want a named model's specific traits. Then decide thinking vs non-thinking.
- 3Thinking vs non-thinking first. Reach for a thinking modelA reasoning model (shown with a brain icon in Cursor's picker) that spends extra compute before answering; reach for it on complex, nuanced work and a standard model for fast, simple tasks. Press Enter for the full definition. on plans, complex environments and security or codebase scans: slower but smartest. It's overkill for simple tasks.
- 4Then weigh traits. A frontier model like GPT-5.x can be verbose and overthink trivial tasks, but it's excellent at writing documentation and clear natural-language explanations. Match the trait to the job.
Interactive widget. Tab through its controls; the result updates in the panel below as you change them.
Auto handles the default; the decision tree only matters when you deliberately override it for a model's traits.