Tutorial · 4 of 8

Install skills in Cursor

Cursor is the AI-first code editor that everyone keeps tweeting about. It speaks MCP natively, so any iClaude skill drops in cleanly.

7 min read

Open Cursor in your project folder

Cursor installs skills per-project, not globally — the config lives inside the folder you're working in. So open Cursor and either open an existing project folder or create a new one.

If you're just trying things out, create an empty folder on your desktop, drag it into Cursor, and you're set.

Open Cursor's built-in terminal

Press Ctrl + ` (or Cmd + ` on Mac) to open the terminal pane at the bottom. This is just a normal terminal that's already pointing at your project folder.

Or use the menu: Terminal → New Terminal.

Find a skill on iclaude.io

Open iclaude.io/skills in your browser. Filter by Stack → Cursor to see only the skills verified to work here.

Cursor users especially love skills for: web search, GitHub / GitLab, databases, Linear, Sentry, and docs sites like Stripe and Supabase.

Copy the install command

On the skill page, the install box has a Cursor tab. The command looks like:

terminal

$ npx iclaude install web-search --stack cursor

The --stack cursor flag tells iClaude to write to .cursor/mcp.json instead of auto-detecting.

Click the COPY button.

Run it in the Cursor terminal

Click into the terminal pane and paste (Ctrl/Cmd + V). Press Enter.

iClaude creates .cursor/mcp.json in your project (or adds to it if it already exists). You'll see:

code

✓ Added web-search to .cursor/mcp.json
✓ Restart Cursor for changes to take effect

Restart Cursor

Use the menu: File → Quit Cursor (or Cmd + Q on Mac). Re-open from the dock or Start menu.

Reopening the window from inside the app is not enough — the MCP servers boot at app startup.

Verify in Cursor's MCP panel

Open settings: Cmd + , (Mac) or Ctrl + , (Windows/Linux). Search for MCP in the search bar.

You should see your skill listed with a green dot next to it. If it's red, click Show details — the error usually tells you exactly what's missing (an API key, a path that doesn't exist, etc.).

Now open Cursor's chat (Cmd/Ctrl + L) and ask it to use the skill:

prompt

Use the web-search skill to find recent news about Nepal's election

Where the config lives

Cursor reads MCP config from two places, in order:

.cursor/mcp.json in your current project — wins for per-project skills.
~/.cursor/mcp.json in your home folder — global, applies to every project.

The file looks like this:

json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "web-search": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@iclaude/web-search-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Common gotchas

Red dot in MCP panel, no error. Open the terminal and run the command field from the JSON directly — the actual error message will print there.
Skill works in Claude Desktop but not Cursor. Some skills assume Claude-specific features. The catalog labels these clearly — look for the claude-only tag.
Skill appears, but Cursor doesn't call it. Be explicit in your prompt: "Use the X skill to…" instead of hoping Cursor picks it up.
Conflicts with another MCP server. Names must be unique. Open .cursor/mcp.json and rename one of them.