Comparison
Nix Agents vs Cursor: an agent workspace is not an editor
The honest version: Cursor is where you write code and Nix Agents is where your agents run. If you want an editor with an agent in it, that tool exists and it is very good. This page is about the other shape.
What Cursor is
Cursor is an AI-first code editor built on VS Code, with an agent mode that edits across files, a background agent that runs tasks away from your screen, and an automated reviewer that comments on pull requests. It is a complete environment for one person writing code with AI assistance in the loop.
Nix Agents does not compete with that. It does not replace your editor and it has no interest in being one.
What an agent workspace is instead
Nix Agents starts from a different assumption: that the interesting unit of work is not a file or a completion, it is a task handed to a CLI agent that will take minutes, touch a dozen files and come back with a diff. The window is organised around those tasks — several at once, each in its own worktree, each in a real terminal you can watch, interrupt or take over by hand.
So the unit you look at all day is the task and its diff, not the file. That is a different tool, not a better one.
- Real local terminals for the CLIs you already use — around 25 of them.
- One git worktree per agent, so two agents never fight over the same checkout.
- A diff per worktree, readable before anything is merged.
- Swarm mode with a merge queue — coming soon in the beta.
| Feature / Dimension | Cursor | Nix Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Product Category | AI-first code editor (IDE) | Agent Development Environment (ADE) |
| Primary Unit of Focus | Active file editing and completion | Task delegated to autonomous agent CLI |
| Agent Runtime | Proprietary background agent in editor | Local CLI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Aider) |
| Working Tree Safety | Single shared checkout with user | Strict isolated git worktree per session |
| Parallel Concurrency | 1 background agent at a time | Multiple parallel CLI agents on one board |
| Terminal Engine | VS Code integrated terminal | Windows ConPTY with full ANSI/VT100 support |
| Model Pricing | Cursor subscription ($20/month+) | Bring your own subscriptions or local models (0% proxy) |
Using both
Most people do not have to choose. The agents running in Nix Agents edit real files in real repositories; the editor you open on that repository is your own business. Plenty of the work is agent-shaped and plenty of it is typing-shaped, and they are different hours of the day.
The one mistake worth avoiding is buying an agent workspace expecting an IDE, or an IDE expecting it to supervise four agents in parallel. Neither is a defect in the other.
Questions
- Does Nix Agents include a code editor?
- There is an embedded browser and a real terminal surface, not a full IDE. Editing happens in your editor or directly in the terminal with the tools you already use.
- Does Nix Agents work with Cursor?
- Yes, in the sense that they operate on the same repositories. Cursor edits a checkout; Nix Agents takes its own worktrees of the same repo. Nothing is locked or converted.