---
title: "Make your AI coding assistant faster and safer with \".cursorignore\" file"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/make-your-ai-coding-assistant-faster-and-safer-with-cursorignore-file-hi63ewwxl
source_url: https://techhub.iodigital.com/articles/cursorignore-file
type: article
source: "iO tech_hub"
published: 2026-07-14T11:05:18.528Z
updated: 2026-07-14T11:05:45.442Z
tags: ["llm", "nextjs", "ai-assisted-development", "jetbrains"]
reading_time: 6
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Make your AI coding assistant faster and safer with ".cursorignore" file

**[iO tech\_hub](https://daily.dev/sources/iotechhub)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

The `.cursorignore` file lets you control which files your AI coding assistant indexes and includes in context. Without it, tools like Cursor may waste tokens on `node_modules` (100k+ files), lock files, build artifacts, and — more critically — `.env` files containing API keys. The file uses `.gitignore` syntax, so there's no learning curve. A complete example for a Next.js project is provided, covering secrets, build output, generated files, and IDE metadata. Cursor has sensible defaults already, but an explicit file serves as documentation and also works for JetBrains AI Assistant, which has no built-in defaults. Tips include commenting every rule with the reasoning and updating the file whenever new tooling is added. Ready-made templates for 20+ stacks are available via the `artem-kuchumov/cursorignore` GitHub project.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://techhub.iodigital.com/articles/cursorignore-file>

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---

Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#nextjs](https://daily.dev/tags/nextjs), [#ai-assisted-development](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-assisted-development), [#jetbrains](https://daily.dev/tags/jetbrains)

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