4.3 KiB
Final Direction Summary: Replacing Cursor for Your Use Case Core Goal
You want:
A Cursor-like chat experience
Integrated with:
your codebase
Google Cloud services
your product workflows
Without paying for Cursor or depending on OpenAI/Cursor infra.
We aligned on an approach that gives you this, while keeping costs, maintenance, and risk manageable.
The Chosen Architecture
- Use VSCodium as your editor base
Instead of Cursor or VS Code:
Open-source
Redistributable
No telemetry/licensing issues
Compatible with VS Code extensions
Lets you ship your own IDE experience
You are not building a new editor, you are building a product cockpit on top of a proven editor shell.
- Build your product experience as an Extension (not a fork)
We agreed:
Extension-first is the right V1 strategy.
Because with an extension you can:
Add your own Product OS UI
Build your own chat interface
Integrate Gemini + GCP + tools
Ship cross-platform quickly
Avoid the heavy maintenance cost of a fork
A fork only becomes justified later if you need:
Hard shell changes
Locked-down layouts
Enterprise kiosk behavior
- Use an Open-Source Chat UI Instead of Cursor
To avoid building chat UI from scratch, we landed on:
✅ Best starting point: Open-source chat extensions
You can reuse or extend:
Option A (Recommended)
Copilot Chat UI (open-sourced by Microsoft)
Production-grade chat UI
MIT license
Can be repointed to:
your backend
Gemini / Vertex AI
Gives you:
streaming responses
history
context-aware UX
Option B (Fast prototyping)
Continue
Open-source
Already works in VSCodium
Can connect to:
local LLMs
remote APIs (your Gemini backend)
Great for validating UX quickly
This gives you:
A Cursor-like chat UX without Cursor.
- Gemini + Control Plane replaces Cursor’s backend
Instead of:
Cursor → OpenAI → Cursor tools
You will have:
VSCodium → Your Extension → Control Plane → Gemini (Vertex AI) + GCP Tools
Your backend becomes the intelligence layer:
/chat endpoint → Gemini
/tools/invoke → deploy, logs, analytics, campaigns, etc
policy enforcement
cost tracking
product-aware reasoning
This gives you:
full ownership
no vendor lock-in
better monetization control
- Code Generation Does NOT require rebuilding everything
We clarified: You do NOT need to rebuild a full editor or execution engine to generate code.
You only need:
Minimal tooling:
Model returns:
structured diffs
optional commands
Extension:
previews changes
applies patches
optionally runs tests
Everything else (editing, git, terminals) is already provided by VSCodium.
So you get:
Cursor-like “generate code and apply it” behavior without building Cursor from scratch.
- Direct Cloud Access: Use Signed URLs, Not Service Accounts
We aligned on:
Don’t give the IDE persistent cloud credentials
Use:
Control Plane → signed URLs → GCS
This gives you:
better security
easier monetization
easy migration later
avoids long-term risk
You can still have:
Direct data transfer without exposing cloud identities.
- Product OS > Code Chat Only
You’re not just building a “code helper chat”.
You’re building a Product OS, where chat can:
generate code
deploy services
analyze funnels
generate campaigns
summarize experiments
optimize onboarding
respond to support tickets
That’s your differentiator over Cursor:
Cursor is a coding assistant You’re building a product automation cockpit
What This Means Practically
You will:
Run VSCodium
Install:
Your Product OS extension
An open-source chat UI (or embed it)
Connect it to:
Your Control Plane
Gemini on Vertex AI
Add:
Tool invocation
Product modules (marketing, analytics, growth, etc)
Ship:
A Cursor-free AI IDE focused on launching and running products
What You Avoid
By this approach, you avoid:
Paying Cursor per seat
Being locked into OpenAI routing
Forking VS Code prematurely
Owning an editor platform too early
Maintaining a custom compiler/distribution pipeline
Final Position
You do not need Cursor.
You can build:
A great chat interface
With code + GCP integration
On VSCodium
With open-source UI
Powered by Gemini
And fully controlled by you
If you’d like, next I can:
Lay out a concrete build roadmap (V1 → V3)
Or give you a minimal stack diagram + repo layout
Or produce a starter technical spec for your Product OS Chat + Tooling platform