Verified against Cursor · 2026-07-26
Build a Cursor Notepad once so a recurring task stops needing a re-explained brief every time
A brief for authoring a Cursor Notepad — a reusable, @-mentionable context block — for a task that recurs often enough that re-typing the same constraints every session is itself the cost, with an explicit staleness check so the Notepad gets corrected the first time it drifts from reality instead of silently misleading every session after.
The prompt
Ready to copy — highlighted parts are example details you can swap.
Create a Cursor Notepad for the following recurring task, so future sessions can @-mention it instead of having the same context re-explained from scratch each time. RECURRING TASK THIS NOTEPAD SUPPORTS Adding a new internal admin report page: a filtered table view over an existing dataset, with CSV export and role-gated access. CONTEXT THAT STAYS TRUE ACROSS SESSIONS — put this in the Notepad All admin pages live under app/admin/, use the AdminTable component, require the "admin" or "analyst" role checked via requireRole(), and CSV export goes through lib/export/toCsv.ts. CONTEXT THAT CHANGES EVERY TIME — do not put this in the Notepad, name what varies instead The specific dataset being reported on, its columns, and which roles beyond the default two (if any) should have access this time. FILES OR SNIPPETS TO REFERENCE FROM INSIDE THE NOTEPAD app/admin/users/page.tsx as the canonical example of the pattern done correctly; lib/export/toCsv.ts for the export utility signature. Write the Notepad so that a future session that @-mentions it plus a one-line description of what's different this time has everything it needs — the stable context should do the heavy lifting, and the one-line addition should only ever need to supply what VARIABLE_CONTEXT says actually changes. Structure it as: 1. A one-paragraph statement of what this recurring task is and when to reach for this Notepad instead of writing a fresh brief. 2. The stable constraints, rules, and conventions, written the same way a rules file would be — directive, not descriptive. 3. A short "what you still need to supply" checklist naming exactly the variable inputs a session using this Notepad must still provide. 4. A staleness note: the specific signal that would mean this Notepad needs updating — a file moving, a convention changing — so whoever notices that signal knows to fix the Notepad rather than work around it silently in one session and leave it wrong for the next.
Customize
Optional — swap in your own details for the highlighted parts above.
Why this works
A Notepad is @-mentionable the same way a file is, which means it gets pulled into context on demand rather than being either always-loaded like an Always rule or re-typed from scratch every session — that middle ground is exactly right for a task that recurs often enough to be worth documenting once, but not so universally relevant that it should sit in every request's context whether needed or not. Separating STABLE_CONTEXT from VARIABLE_CONTEXT explicitly is the core design decision here, because a Notepad that tries to also capture what changes each time either goes stale the first time the specifics differ from the example baked into it, or forces the author to keep editing the Notepad itself every session, which defeats the entire point of writing it once. Naming the variable inputs as an explicit checklist rather than leaving them implicit in the stable content means a future session using the Notepad knows exactly what it still has to supply, rather than discovering partway through that the Notepad's baked-in example dataset isn't actually the one relevant this time and untangling which parts of the Notepad were ever meant to generalize. The staleness note is the part most reusable-context setups skip, and it's specifically what prevents the Notepad from becoming actively harmful rather than just eventually useless: a Notepad with no staleness signal gets silently worked around the first time it's wrong — the session using it just does something slightly different and moves on — and the Notepad stays wrong for every session after that, quietly steering each one slightly off from current reality with no one ever tracing the drift back to the Notepad as the source.
Verified against
Cursor 2.2 · 2026-07-26
Changelog
- 2026-07-26 — Initial publish, verified against Cursor 2.2 Notepads.
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