Image: Cursor
Why it mattersThe build-to-link gap is shrinking inside a coding agent. The trade-off is lock-in on the agent's hosting, auth and database.
A working demo link beats a local run every time. Cursor added Build Live Apps on 5 November 2026. A cloud agent scaffolds a web app from a prompt. It stands up a Postgres database when the app needs one. It adds Cursor SSO sign-in. It then hosts the app and gives the user a link to share.
The feature is on every paid Cursor plan with cloud agents on. Cursor builds from a new or existing repo on Cursor Origin or on GitHub. GitLab support is coming later, Cursor says.
What the cloud agent does
The user types a prompt. The agent sets up the web project, builds it, and connects the parts. If the app needs a database, the agent spins up a Postgres instance. If the app needs sign-in, the agent wires up Cursor SSO. The agent also asks for credentials to any outside service the app needs, for example a data warehouse.
The user then picks a domain. Cursor publishes the app on that link. Sharing can be with named people, named groups, or a whole team, over Cursor sign-in. On the Individual plan, the user can also share the app publicly. API keys can be issued for scripts or for use from Grok Bot, Cursor says.
Before the app goes live, Cursor runs what it calls deterministic and agentic security checks. Those checks look for secrets written into the app files, and for exposed credentials. Team admins see every app and every secret. They can set custom security rules, approve or block a publish, and unpublish an app.
What this changes, and what to watch
The point of the feature is that the loop from prompt to live link now happens inside the coding agent. A product manager can get a working demo without a deploy step. A review build is one prompt away. A team can hand a working link to a customer the same day.
The cost is lock-in. The database, the auth and the hosting are Cursor's. A team that wants to leave Cursor has to migrate all three. Cursor has not said what happens to a live app after a team cancels its plan. It has not said what region the database runs in. It has not named a pricing page for the hosted database or for the hosting itself. The changelog says only that the feature is included on paid plans with cloud agents on.
A team evaluating this against Vercel Agents or Replit Agents has three questions. What does the data layer actually cost. What does the app look like at a thousand users. And how does the team move it out when it has to.
Source
This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.
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