← Browse

Europe 2026

Replacing 12K LoC with a 200 LoC Skill — David Gomes, Cursor

David Gomes

Overview

This talk details how Cursor refactored a complex feature, originally spanning 12,000 lines of code, into a concise 200-line skill. This transformation leveraged existing primitives like agent skills and sub-agents, primarily using markdown to redefine functionality. The refactoring aimed to reduce maintenance overhead and improve user experience for advanced features.

Who should watch

Key takeaways

Notable quotes

*We recently replaced a lot of code in the Cursor application with just markdown, just a skill.*
*The new implementation of the feature is almost as good as the previous one and it is much much more lightweight in terms of us to maintain it.*
*The biggest problem right now is that the agent is not really always staying on track.*

Watch on YouTube →

Up next · Coding agents in production

Watch next

The harness is the product — humans steer, agents execute.

Harness Engineering: How to Build Software When Humans Steer, Agents Execute — Ryan Lopopolo, OpenAI

Full trail →

Unofficial community note. Prefer the recording for nuance.