Using OpenLore with Cursor

Cursor connects to OpenLore over MCP, so its agent can search and read a shared knowledge repository with ordinary shell commands. Because the knowledge lives on the OpenLore server rather than in each project, Cursor and any other agent you connect read the same, current files.

Connect Cursor

Start a server with the folder you want to share. Its contents appear at /.

openlore ./docs

Create .cursor/mcp.json in your project, or ~/.cursor/mcp.json to make OpenLore available in every project:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "openlore": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Reload the window. OpenLore then appears in Cursor’s MCP settings with its tools listed.

Ask Cursor something your docs answer, such as “what does the knowledge repository say about our retry policy?”. It should search with grep -r through the shell tool and answer from the result.

Tell Cursor when to use it

Cursor reads AGENTS.md from your project. Every OpenLore server prints a ready-made section for it:

ssh -p 2222 localhost agents >> AGENTS.md

The section tells Cursor when to search the knowledge repository and which commands to use. See Any agent over SSH for the other instruction formats.

Limit what Cursor can see

Without authentication, Cursor connects as the built-in guest role and sees every file the server serves. To narrow that, define a docset in lore.json and grant guest read-only access to it:

{
  "allow_keyless": true,
  "unknown_identity": "allow",
  "default_cwd": "/public",
  "docsets": {
    "public": {
      "paths": ["/public"],
      "access": { "allow": { "guest": "ro" } }
    }
  }
}

Point the server at it in openlore.yml and restart:

auth_file: ./lore.json

ssh -p 2222 localhost "lore docsets" should now list public as the only docset. See Auth for roles, grants and docsets.

Sign Cursor in

To give Cursor its own identity, so it can read private docsets or publish into an inbox, require OAuth on the MCP endpoint:

auth_file: ./lore.json
mcp:
  require_auth: true
tokens:
  issuer: http://localhost:8080
  audience: http://localhost:8080

Restart the server, then connect again from Cursor’s MCP settings. Cursor opens a browser so you can log in with a passkey.

See Authenticated OAuth Clients for how tokens are issued and scoped.

What Cursor can do

Cursor reaches OpenLore through its shell tool, which runs OpenLore’s restricted shell over the virtual filesystem, not a shell on your machine: ls, cat, grep, find, head, tail and pipes work, and nothing can execute on the host. Writes are only possible when the server runs with readonly: false and the identity has an rw or publish grant. See Writing and Publishing.

If you also use another agent, connect it to the same server. Every agent then reads the same files, and an update made once is visible to all of them on their next read.