EP 25 5 min with Stella & Liam

Does Cursor Remember Between Sessions?

Cursor keeps your chat history, Memories, rules files and a codebase index, and it still forgets what you decided yesterday.

AI Stella and Liam are AI hosts with AI-generated voices. About our AI hosts

Key takeaways

  1. Cursor keeps four things: chat history, Memories, rules files and a codebase index.
  2. Old chats keep knowledge only inside that chat's context window, and the index finds code but not why you wrote it.
  3. Yesterday's decisions and hand-written rules that go stale are the gap; scheduled and background runs also start with a fresh context.
  4. Vilix AI connects to Cursor over MCP: get_context at the start of a task, save_turn at the end, newest memory wins, failed attempts saved too.
  5. Rule of thumb from the show: if it describes the project, put it in a file; if it describes the work, put it in Vilix AI.

Show notes

Cursor keeps your chat history, Memories, rules files and a codebase index, and it still forgets what you decided yesterday. In this episode of Agentic Pod, Liam and Stella explain what each of those four things really keeps, why old chats and hand-written rules files go stale, why scheduled and background runs start blank, and how to give Cursor a memory that survives with Vilix AI using get_context and save_turn over MCP.

What we cover:

  • What Cursor keeps: chat history, Memories, rules files and the codebase index
  • Why yesterday’s decisions never reach today’s chat
  • Why hand-written rules files go stale
  • Scheduled and background runs that start with a fresh context
  • How Vilix AI fixes it: get_context before the task, save_turn after, newest memory wins, project rules, source labels
  • One Vilix AI account per client for agencies

Chapters

Questions answered in this episode

Does Cursor remember between sessions?

It keeps chats, Memories, rules files and a code index. It does not carry yesterday's decisions into a new chat on its own.

Why do rules files go stale?

Somebody has to write and update them by hand, so they drift from the project. Project rules in Vilix AI are updated once and every agent reads the new version.

Can the same memory work in Claude Code and ChatGPT?

Yes. One Vilix AI account is shared over MCP, and each save carries a source label so you can see which tool wrote it.

Is there a free plan?

The show says the free plan is free forever, with a seven-day Pro trial and no credit card.

Links & resources

Full transcript

Intro

Liam

Hey hey hey, welcome to Agentic Pod! I'm Liam.

Stella

And I'm Stella! Liam, Cursor keeps four things. Chat history, Memories, rules files and a codebase index. So does it remember my project or not?

Liam

Not the way you think. It keeps what you said and what you wrote down. It doesn't keep what you decided yesterday.

Stella

Okay, that sounds like a very specific kind of forgetting.

Liam

It is. Today: what Cursor keeps, what slips through, and how Vilix AI fills the gap.

Stella

Good. My morning prompt is longer than my commute.

What Cursor does keep

Stella

Fine, start with the good news. What does Cursor remember?

Liam

Past chats stay in the sidebar, so you can reopen them. But the knowledge in an old chat only lives inside that chat's context window.

Stella

So reopening it is like rereading old texts.

Liam

Pretty much. Then there's Memories. A facts store, inside one IDE, and the interface for managing it has changed between versions.

Stella

And the rules files?

Liam

dot cursor slash rules, and an AGENTS dot md file. Those reload every session. They tell Cursor how to work. Use tabs, run the tests, keep it short.

Stella

And the index?

Liam

A vector index of your code, for semantic search. It finds code. It doesn't recall why you wrote it.

Stella

Okay. So what's missing?

What none of that gives you

Liam

Yesterday's decisions. You tell Cursor, we dropped that library, it broke our build. That lives in one chat. Today's chat has never heard of it.

Stella

And it tries the library again.

Liam

Yep. Second problem, rules files. Somebody has to write them. By hand. And hand-written files go stale.

Stella

So half my rules describe a project I abandoned in March.

Liam

Everyone has that file. But here's the one that bites automation people most. Scheduled and background runs.

Stella

Wait, those start fresh too?

Liam

Every run starts with a fresh context. Run one hundred is as blind as run one. And run history is a log. A log isn't memory.

Stella

So what does real memory look like?

The fix: Vilix AI as Cursor's memory

Liam

A memory outside the context window, that the agent can search later. That's Vilix AI, connected to Cursor over MCP. MCP is the plug that lets an AI app use outside tools.

Stella

And how does the agent use it?

Liam

Two calls. At the start of a task, Cursor calls get_context with what it's about to do. It gets back past decisions, preferences, the library you dropped.

Stella

And at the end?

Liam

save_turn. It stores the whole exchange, not a thin summary. So the why is still there next week.

Stella

What if Monday's note is wrong by Tuesday?

Liam

Newest memory wins. Tuesday's fix beats Monday's guess. And failed attempts get saved too, so a run doesn't retry a dead end.

Stella

What about the stale rules file?

Liam

Project rules live in Vilix AI. Update them once, and every agent reads the new version at the start. No file to edit in six repos.

Stella

Okay, but I'm not only in Cursor. I bounce to Claude Code, ChatGPT...

Liam

Same Vilix AI account, same memory. Every save has a source label, so you see Cursor wrote this, Claude Code wrote that. Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes too.

Stella

So Cursor finally stops being the only one who knows.

Liam

Right. And one more question you'll have.

Setup, and the client angle

Stella

Agencies. People running Cursor for clients.

Liam

My favorite use. One Vilix AI account per client, like a Gmail account that belongs to them. Every agent you build for that client connects with that account's key.

Stella

So the memory belongs to the client's business.

Liam

And you don't build memory from scratch. You wire it up.

Stella

And setup?

Liam

A couple of minutes. The guide in the description has the steps and the prompts. The free plan is free forever, and the Pro trial is seven days, no credit card.

Stella

And if I leave?

Liam

Export your data or delete it, anytime. Here's the rule I use. If it describes the project, put it in a file. If it describes the work, put it in Vilix AI.

Stella

Files for facts, memory for lessons.

Liam

Exactly. Vilix AI, the guide and the blog post are in the description. What did Cursor forget on you this week? Tell us in the comments. See you next time!