Why build in Cursor even if you're not writing code

The advantage of building in a coding agent like Cursor instead of a consumer chat tool isn't the underlying model — it's that Cursor shows you exactly what context the AI is working with, and lets you control it, even if you're not writing code yourself. Tal Raviv and Aman Khan made this case in Lenny's Newsletter: the fastest way to build real AI intuition is to move out of consumer tools like ChatGPT and into coding agents, because you can see every file and point the AI at exactly what you want it to reference in a given task.

In practice, that means setting up actual files for a PRD, design guidelines, a target persona, and success criteria, then pointing an AI coding agent directly at those files while building. That's what "context engineering" looks like in practice: you control what the AI sees, so it stays on your plan instead of drifting.

ChatGPT and Claude.ai are strong tools, but the context they're working from is invisible to you. A coding agent like Cursor makes it visible — which means the real question worth asking before starting a build isn't which model to use, but whether your AI can actually see your plan.