Cursor Privacy Settings

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Cursor security
• Cursor telemetry
• Cursor data retention

Example prompts

• “cursor privacy”
• “cursor data”
• “cursor security”
• “/cursor-privacy-settings”

Requirements

• Compatibility (from SKILL.md): Designed for Claude Code
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): Read, Write, Edit, Bash(cmd:*)

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Select the approved privacy/data controls and verify their effective tenant/user state.
2. 2Configure .cursorignore and workspace trust to prevent secrets, customer data, and generated artifacts entering context.
3. 3Test the boundary with sanitized fixtures and retain redacted verification evidence.
4. 4Review settings after tenant, provider, policy, or data-classification changes.

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cfae287. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • Read
  • Write
  • Edit
  • Bash(cmd:*)

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • cursor

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Hosts in commands or code, which the agent is likely to contact:

  • proxy.corp.com

  Also links to:

  • cursor.com
  • docs.cursor.com

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

• Compatibility

  Designed for Claude Code

  From compatibility in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

Context cost

Cursor Privacy Settings loads about 2.1k tokens when it runs, and up to ~3.2k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 59 tokens; SKILL.md has 733 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~59

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~2.1k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~3.2k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:130

  .env

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:131

  .env.*

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:132

  .env.local

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:133

  .env.production

• NoteMentions a .env fileSKILL.md:156

  Layer 2: .env files        → Config via environment variables

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace at commit cfae287, republished under its MIT licence (© jeremylongshore). 733 words, ~2,078 tokens.

name

cursor-privacy-settings

description

Configure Cursor privacy mode, data handling, telemetry, and sensitive file exclusion. Triggers on "cursor privacy", "cursor data", "cursor security", "privacy mode", "cursor telemetry", "cursor data retention".

allowed-tools

Read, Write, Edit, Bash(cmd:*)

compatibility

Designed for Claude Code

version

1.19.0

license

MIT

author

Jeremy Longshore <jeremy@intentsolutions.io>

tags

saas, cursor, security

Your Code in Editor
       │
       ├─► Tab Completion ──► Cursor's proprietary model server
       │                      (zero retention with Privacy Mode)
       │
       ├─► Chat/Composer ──► Model provider (OpenAI/Anthropic/Google)
       │                     (zero retention agreements in place)
       │
       ├─► Codebase Index ─► Cursor embedding API ─► Turbopuffer (vector DB)
       │                     (embeddings only, no plaintext code)
       │
       └─► BYOK ───────────► Your API provider directly
                             (your provider's data policy applies)

# .cursorignore -- prevent files from AI features + indexing

# Credentials and secrets
.env
.env.*
.env.local
.env.production
**/secrets/
**/credentials/
**/*.pem
**/*.key
**/*.p12

# Regulated data
**/pii/
**/hipaa/
**/financial-data/

# Internal configuration
.cursor-config-private
infrastructure/terraform.tfvars

Layer 1: .gitignore        → Secrets never in repo
Layer 2: .env files        → Config via environment variables
Layer 3: .cursorignore     → Best-effort AI exclusion
Layer 4: Privacy Mode      → Zero data retention at providers
Layer 5: BYOK + Azure      → Route through your own infrastructure

// settings.json
{
  "telemetry.telemetryLevel": "off"
}

api.cursor.com           → AI API requests
api2.cursor.com          → AI API requests (fallback)
auth.cursor.com          → Authentication
*.turbopuffer.com        → Codebase indexing (embeddings)
download.cursor.com      → Updates

// settings.json
{
  "http.proxy": "http://proxy.corp.com:8080",
  "http.proxyStrictSSL": true,
  "http.proxyAuthorization": "Basic base64-encoded-credentials"
}

© jeremylongshore, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 7 other files (references) in skills/.curated/cursor-privacy-settings of jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace.

• SKILL.md
• references/data-handling.md
• references/errors.md
• references/examples.md
• references/local-data-storage.md
• references/network-security.md
• references/privacy-mode.md
• references/sensitive-file-exclusion.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cfae287