Use agents in Cursor without installing another plugin

Popular threads say terminal + BASE_URL is enough; clovapi switch persists config better than hand-written env.

A post that keeps circulating on DEV and Reddit-style communities makes a simple claim: the shortcut to agents in Cursor is not an extension—it is the terminal plus environment variables. Claude Code honors ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL; Codex has its own config; export once in Cursor’s integrated terminal and traffic hits your localhost proxy.

Follow-up comments complain: “env dies when I close the tab,” “every repo needs another export,” “Codex does not read Anthropic vars.”

What the community gets right

  • IDE plugins are optional; the network path is the integration surface.
  • A local reverse proxy can transcode transparently—Cursor stays unaware.
  • Running claude inside the IDE terminal feels the same as outside.

Where env-vars break down

Typical failures:

  1. New terminal tab without export—proxy “suddenly broken.”
  2. Team docs say “set BASE_URL to xxx”—new hires still fail (port/path drift).
  3. Claude Code and Codex together—different variable names, growing shell scripts.

clovapi: turn the BASE_URL trick into config files

switch writes what each CLI already respects:

  • Claude Code → ~/.claude/settings.json, etc.;
  • Codex → ~/.codex/config.toml;
  • OpenCode → global opencode.jsonc.

It starts the same Go proxy the CLI uses (default http://127.0.0.1:27483). In Cursor’s terminal:

clovapi switch --cli claude-code my-profile
claude

No per-session export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=... unless you want an override. New tabs, Cursor restarts—profile unchanged, wiring persists.

Versus three-line launcher scripts

Communities share wrappers like:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8077
exec claude "$@"

Fine for one proxy and one CLI. clovapi fits when you need:

  • Many profiles (official / DeepSeek / team gateway);
  • Many CLIs (Claude + Codex + OpenCode);
  • GUI switching in the desktop app.

Checklist for Cursor users

  1. Install clovapi CLI or desktop (home page download).
  2. clovapi add to save upstreams, switch per CLI.
  3. Open Cursor’s terminal, run claude / codex / opencode.
  4. Confirm proxy: clovapi proxy status or the desktop panel.

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