Cursor Tips: Secrets to Doubling Code Quality

As an experienced Cursor technical instructor, I often encounter the challenges developers face in their daily coding: lengthy and hard-to-maintain code, inconsistent naming, and unclear comments severely affect development efficiency. Especially in a large project, when you take over someone else’s code, you often need to spend a lot of time understanding and refactoring it. Cursor, as a powerful AI-assisted programming tool, can significantly help us improve code quality. This tutorial will reveal how to use the core features of Cursor to make your code more concise, standardized, and maintainable.

1. Intelligent Code Refactoring

Concept Introduction

Code refactoring is a key step in improving code quality. Cursor can intelligently identify optimization spaces in the code and provide refactoring suggestions.

Steps to Operate

1. Select the code block to be refactored 2. Use the shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + K to invoke Cursor AI 3. Enter the refactoring command, such as “refactor this code to improve readability”

Code Example

# Before Refactoring
def calc(a, b, c):
    if c == 'add':
        return a + b
    if c == 'sub':
        return a - b
    if c == 'mul':
        return a * b
    if c == 'div':
        return a / b if b != 0 else "Error"

# After Refactoring
def calculate(first_num: float, second_num: float, operation: str) -> float:
    """
    Perform basic mathematical operations
    Args:
        first_num: The first operand
        second_num: The second operand
        operation: The type of operation (add/sub/mul/div)
    Returns:
        The result of the operation
    """
    operations = {
        'add': lambda x, y: x + y,
        'sub': lambda x, y: x - y,
        'mul': lambda x, y: x * y,
        'div': lambda x, y: x / y if y != 0 else "Division by zero"
    }
    return operations.get(operation, lambda x, y: "Unsupported operation")(first_num, second_num)

💡 Tip: Using type annotations and docstrings can greatly enhance code readability and maintainability.

2. AI-Assisted Naming Optimization

Concept Introduction

Variable and function naming is an important part of code readability, and Cursor can help us choose more accurate names.

Steps to Operate

1. Select the variable or function name 2. Right-click and choose “Ask Cursor” 3. Enter “suggest better name”

Code Example

# Before Optimization
def p(lst):
    r = []
    for i in lst:
        if i > 0:
            r.append(i)
    return r

# After Optimization
def filter_positive_numbers(number_list: list) -> list:
    positive_numbers = []
    for number in number_list:
        if number > 0:
            positive_numbers.append(number)
    return positive_numbers

⚠️ Note: Naming should conform to project naming conventions, avoiding single-letter variable names.

3. Automatically Generate Unit Tests

Concept Introduction

Cursor can automatically generate unit tests based on existing code, enhancing code reliability.

Code Example

# Original Function
def is_valid_email(email: str) -> bool:
    import re
    pattern = r'^[\w\.-]+@[\w\.-]+\.[\w]+$'
    return bool(re.match(pattern, email))

# Test Code Generated by Cursor
import unittest

class TestEmailValidation(unittest.TestCase):
    def test_valid_email(self):
        self.assertTrue(is_valid_email("[email protected]"))

    def test_invalid_email(self):
        self.assertFalse(is_valid_email("invalid.email@"))
        self.assertFalse(is_valid_email("@example.com"))

📌 Key Reminder: Ensure test cases cover edge cases and exceptions.

Core Points Summary

1. Utilize Cursor‘s AI capabilities for intelligent code refactoring to improve code quality 2. Enhance code readability through naming optimization 3. Automatically generate unit tests to ensure code reliability

Practice Suggestions

1. Choose a complex function from an existing project and use Cursor for refactoring 2. Practice using Cursor to optimize variable and function naming 3. Try to generate a complete unit test suite for core business logic

Remember, tools are always auxiliary; the key is to develop good coding habits. Through continuous practice, let Cursor become your effective assistant in improving code quality. I hope this tutorial helps you write better code in actual development!