“the best example of a rule that I can think of internally is for Bugbot. So when we're doing database migrations, we're not really using foreign keys on a database for performance reasons. And the models like the right way to do this is use foreign keys, right? So they will always add a foreign key. But when it … hits … and there's a PR created, we have Bugbot … it's like, oh, I have this rule saying like we should never use foreign keys. So then it flags this.”
Eric Zakariasson, Engineer, Developer Experience and Product, Cursor. Works inside Cursor and describes how his own team builds and runs the product with agents, so he is an insider on those practices; Cursor sells AI coding tools and the talk shows its own product, so it is promotional.
Cursor (Anysphere) sells AI or agent tools or services, so it has a reason to publish flattering numbers about AI. The passage stays in the archive; read it with that in mind.
How this was checked
Checked against the source by a first reader, then confirmed independently by a second reader who fetched the source without seeing the first reader's notes (Independent review agent (Claude Sonnet), blind second pass from passage text and citation only, no repository access, 2026-11-04).
Whisper transcript at about 45:06–45:30. The passage is cut at 'the best example of a rule…'. Ellipses cover 'it' before 'hits', 'GitHub and' and 'looking as it's reviewing'. Whisper writes 'get up' for GitHub, so the passage's 'hits … and' skips the garbled word. Wording otherwise matches.
How to cite this passage
Eric Zakariasson (Cursor (Anysphere)), “Building your own software factory”, AI Engineer (YouTube), 2026-04-28, at 45:06. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnDm57Py54A Archived at https://the-ai-record.com/passages/cursor-bugbot-rule-never-use-foreign-keys-2026
80% code owner correct rate, as described in the 2026 talk
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Context. Zakariasson is talking about running cloud agents, each in its own virtual machine, and guesses how many Cursor itself runs; he says he does not know the number.
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Context. Zakariasson is answering an audience question about whether agents read tasks from an issue tracker, and describing how Cursor's own team does it.
14 days feature flag full rollout days, as described in the 2026 talk
Checked against the source[ Grade B ]Said in the last yearCursor (Anysphere): $4 billion revenue, annualised, early June 2026Sells AI toolsPassage page
Cursor (Anysphere)