Learn Chrome, Mac and Remix

Vimium's Vomnibar is a "command palette"-like search tool for your open tabs, browser history, and bookmarks. We can search through and jump to any tab open across browser windows. We can also do a generalized search with results that also include browser history and bookmarks which can either be opened in the current tab or a new tab. If you're anything like me, you open tons of tabs and visit hundreds of webpages over the course of a week. The vomnibar puts all of that at your fingertips.

Josh Branchaud

Open Tabs, Browser History, and Bookmarks with the Vomnibar

Vimium's Vomnibar is a "command palette"-like search tool for your open tabs, browser history, and bookmarks.

Another aspect of Vimium's configurability is customizable key mappings. We can add new mappings and override existing ones. If there is a certain Vimium feature you want to make easier to trigger, adjust the key mapping to suit your needs.

Configure Custom Vimium Key Mappings

Another aspect of Vimium's configurability is customizable key mappings. We can add new mappings and override existing ones.

Many aspects of Vimium can be configured in order to bend the tool to your specific needs and use cases. We look at how to configure what sites turn off Vimium, the default search engine, link hint characters, and other basic settings. We also see how both insert mode and searching a visual selection work. Custom keymappings and custom search engines are covered in subsequent lessons.

Configure Basic Aspects of Vimium

Many aspects of Vimium can be configured in order to bend the tool to your specific needs and use cases.

Vimium's "marks" feature lets you mark positions in the current tab and across tabs. These are positional markers that you can jump back to. For instance, as you browse a huge page of documentation or a massive forum discussion, you can leave a series of "dog ears" to sections or conversations that you'll later want to revisit. Each tab supports its own set of lower-case letter marks. Upper-case letter marks are shared across tabs allowing you to seamlessly move between a specific set of tabs regardless of how they are arranged.

Set Marks on a Vimium Webpage You Want to Jump Back To

Vimium's "marks" feature lets you mark positions in the current tab and across tabs. These are positional markers that you can jump back to.

Vimium's `yy` shortcut makes quick work of grabbing the URL for the current page. I find this useful for linking to an article in my notes or sharing a web page with my team in Slack/Discord. We'll get a glimpse at a couple other features like `gi` (for "go to input") and `o` to open the URL on the clipboard.

Grab and Open URLs with Vimium

Vimium's `yy` shortcut makes quick work of grabbing the URL for the current page.

An introduction to "Why Use Vimium" and how to install it in your browser of choice. Though this entire course uses Chrome, Vimium is also available for Edge and Firefox. There is a lot that Vimium can do — on-page navigation, moving between tabs, interacting with links and other page elements, and much more. We'll get into all of that in the following lessons.

Install and Start Using Vimium

An introduction to "Why Use Vimium" and how to install it in your browser of choice

A powerful navigation and interaction feature, and probably my most used Vimium feature, is Link Hints. By hitting `f`, we prompt Vimium to overlay link hints for every visible link, button, and interactive HTML element (e.g. a text area). By typing the keys corresponding to a link hint, we effectively click that link or element. We also look at a few page movement commands like scrolling up (`k`) and down (`j`) as well as jumping to the top of a page (`gg`) and to the bottom (`G`). Putting all of these together, we can get into a fluid and efficient flow for common browser tasks.

Follow Links and Fill Forms with Vimium

A powerful navigation and interaction feature, and probably my most used Vimium feature, is Link Hints.

The Vimium Chrome extension enhances page navigation and searching. By pressing forward slash, users enter find mode to search terms on the page. Additional keys like 'N' and Shift+N help navigate through search results forwards and backwards, respectively. The extension proves especially useful on complex web pages, like Stack Overflow, for quickly locating specific sections like answers or share links without reading through all the content.


Navigate using find with Vimium

With these advanced URL manipulation commands we have a whole new way to think about traversing between locations on a website. This is especially useful for sites like GitHub that use a hierarchical URL structure. Since each layer of the URL is a valid page, we can move up that structure (with `gu`) and edit the current URL (with `ge`) to navigate somewhere else.

Traverse a Site with Advanced URL Manipulation with Vimium

With these advanced URL manipulation commands we have a whole new way to think about traversing between locations on a website.

Losing focus and getting lost while looking for that browser tab from *earlier* is a drag on getting things done. Even minor slow-downs in how you navigate within and between pages can pull you out of your flow. There are so many minor aspects of your browser-based workflows that chip away at your productivity.

Vimium extends how you use the browser with a highly-efficient, keyboard-centric workflow. Vimium leverages powerful concepts from the Vim editor (`j`/`k` for scrolling, `f` for following links, `/` for find, etc.) allowing for faster navigation and interaction without the need to switch to the mouse.

Don't worry, you don't need to know anything about Vim. Anyone who spends a lot of time in the browser and is willing to learn a few shortcuts has a lot to gain from using Vimium.

This course demonstrates the core features of Vimium through practical, real-world use cases. Even if you only adopt a few of the shortcuts, you'll find yourself using the browser in surprising, new, and speedy ways.

Get Started with Vimium

Remix is a full stack web framework that focuses on web standards and the server/client model so that you can develop the features your users want and need without being bogged down in over-abstractions. When you get good with Remix, you actually get good at the foundations of web development.

remix

Mocking authentication comes down to how it's implemented. With Mock Service Worker, you can mock the "Set-Cookie" response header to emulate a user session, but with Remix you don't even have to. Instead, in this lesson we will intercept only the authorization call to a database, leaving Remix to handle sessions, cookies, and auth state for us. 

Use MSW to Mock Authentication in Remix

Using a GitHub repo to deploy our application to Vercel, keeps our code and live production site in sync. In this lesson we look at using the [GitHub CLI](https://cli.github.com/) tool to create a public repo, and adding it as a remote origin for our project.

Additionally, we create a new Vercel project from this GitHub repo, add our Supabase environment variables, and deploy. Lastly, we update the Homepage URL in our GitHub OAuth app to be our new Vercel URL, and set our Supabase project's [Authentication Site URL](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/auth/url-configuration) to our new live application URL.

## Extension ideas

- Style the app using Tailwind CSS (or another method of choice)
- Implement the ability for a user to `update` and `delete` their own messages
- Add the option to set a username and display this alongside messages
- Add separate message threads/chat rooms
- Implement private messages/chat rooms

## Resources

- [GitHub CLI](https://cli.github.com/)
- [Vercel docs](https://vercel.com/docs)
- [Deploying Remix app to Vercel](https://vercel.com/guides/deploying-remix-with-vercel)

Deploy a Remix Application to Vercel from a GitHub Repository

To mutate data in Remix, we use an Action function. In this lesson, we look at creating a Remix `<Form />` to submit the content of a message as a `post` request to our `Action` function.

Additionally, we use the server-side Supabase client from the Remix Auth Helpers package to make an authenticated request to Supabase, writing the new message to the `messages` table.

Futhermore, we run into an issue with RLS as we have not yet written a policy for the `insert` action. By setting this to the `authenticated` role and ensuring that the `user_id` column is equal to the value returned by the `auth.uid()` function - a function we get from Supabase to retrieve the ID for the user attempting to insert a new row - we ensure that users can not write a message on someone else's behalf.

Lastly, we use the `auth.uid()` function to set the default value of the `user_id` column to the ID of the user attempting to `insert` the new row in the `messages` table.

## Code Snippets

**Write data to Supabase**

```tsx
export const action = async ({ request }: ActionArgs) => {
  const response = new Response();
  const supabase = createServerSupabase({ request, response });

  const { message } = Object.fromEntries(await request.formData());

  await supabase.from("messages").insert({ content: String(message) });

  return json(null, { headers: response.headers });
};
```

**Form to submit to action**

```tsx
<Form method="post">
  <input type="text" name="message" />
  <button type="submit">Send</button>
</Form>
```

**Add policy for insert**

```sql
create policy "users can insert their own messages" on "public"."messages"
as permissive for insert
to authenticated
wuth check (user_id = auth.uid());
```

> SQL code snippets can be run against your Supabase database by heading over to your project's [SQL Editor](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/sql), pasting them into a new query, and clicking `RUN`.

## Resources

- [Supabase docs - insert](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/javascript/insert)
- [Implement Row Level Security in Supabase (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow_Uzedfohk)
- [Remix docs - Writing data](https://remix.run/docs/en/v1/guides/data-writes)

Securely Mutate Supabase Data with Remix Actions

The OAuth flow is asynchronous. This means we get redirected to the landing page before GitHub and Supabase have decided that you can be trusted! 👍

Since our Loader functions get called when we first load the page they make a request to Supabase before receiving a valid access token. This causes RLS to deny the request to select data.

Once our session has been correctly set, Supabase is happy but we aren't telling Remix to fetch this data again. In this lesson, we look at combining the `onAuthStateChange` hook from Supabase with the `useRevalidator` hook in Remix to recall any active `loaders` when the state of our user changes, keeping data in sync with mutations.

Therefore, any time the user's session is updated - the auth flow has completed for either signing in or out - Remix will automatically call all loader functions that are active on the current route (this could be many with nested routing), fetching fresh data from Supabase with a valid access token.

## Code Snippets

**onAuthStateChange listener**

```tsx
useEffect(() => {
  const {
    data: { subscription },
  } = supabase.auth.onAuthStateChange((event, session) => {
    if (session?.access_token !== serverAccessToken) {
      revalidator.revalidate()
    }
  });

  return () => {
    subscription.unsubscribe();
  };
}, [supabase, serverAccessToken, revalidator]);
```

## Resources

- [Supabase docs - onAuthStateChange](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/javascript/auth-onauthstatechange)
- [Reactor Router docs - useRevalidator](https://reactrouter.com/en/main/hooks/use-revalidator)

Keep Data in Sync with Mutations Using Active Remix Loader Functions

Remix Loaders allow us to fetch data server-side, before rendering a component. This works great if you are implementing your authorization rules for data fetching in the loader function, however, Supabase allows us to use Row Level Security policies to write access policies alongside the data in the database.

By default, `supabase-js` stores session data in `localStorage`, which exists only within the user's browser. If we want this session to be available within Loader or Action functions in Remix, we need to store the session in a cookie. Cookies are automatically sent with every request to the server.

In this lesson, we look at using the Supabase Auth Helpers package for Remix to automate this process, and swap out the storage mechanism for the Supabase client, to use cookies to store session data.

Additionally, we refactor our application to use the new `createServerClient` and `createBrowserClient` functions, making cookies the single source of truth about the user's current session, across the server and client-side of our Remix app.

## Code Snippets

**Install Remix Auth Helpers**

```bash
npm i @supabase/auth-helpers-remix
```

**Create server-side Supabase client**

```tsx
import { createServerClient } from "@supabase/auth-helpers-remix";

import type { Database } from "db_types";

export default ({
  request,
  response,
}: {
  request: Request;
  response: Response;
}) =>
  createServerClient<Database>(
    process.env.SUPABASE_URL!,
    process.env.SUPABASE_ANON_KEY!,
    { request, response }
  );
```

**Create client-side Supabase client (simplified)**

```tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { createBrowserClient } from "@supabase/auth-helpers-remix";

export const loader = async ({ request }: LoaderArgs) => {
  const env = {
    SUPABASE_URL: process.env.SUPABASE_URL!,
    SUPABASE_ANON_KEY: process.env.SUPABASE_ANON_KEY!,
  };

  return json({ env });
};

const { env, session } = useLoaderData<typeof loader>();

const [supabase] = useState(() =>
  createBrowserClient<Database>(env.SUPABASE_URL, env.SUPABASE_ANON_KEY)
);

return <Outlet context={{ supabase }} />;
```

**Use Supabase in a loader**

```tsx
export const loader = async ({ request }: LoaderArgs) => {
  const response = new Response();
  const supabase = createServerSupabase({ request, response });

  const { data } = await supabase.from("messages").select();

  return json({ data }, { headers: response.headers });
};
```

**Use Supabase in an action**

```tsx
export const action = async ({ request }: ActionArgs) => {
  const response = new Response();
  const supabase = createServerSupabase({ request, response });

  const { data } = await supabase.from("messages").insert({ content: "hello" });

  return json({ data }, { headers: response.headers });
};
```

**Use Supabase in a component**

```tsx
import { useOutletContext } from "@remix-run/react";

import type { SupabaseOutletContext } from "~/root";

export default function Login() {
  const { supabase } = useOutletContext<SupabaseOutletContext>();

  const handleLogin = async () => {
    await supabase.auth.signInWithOAuth({
      provider: "github",
    });
  };

  return <button onClick={handleLogin}>Login</button>;
}
```

## Resources

- [Supabase docs - Remix Auth Helpers](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/auth/auth-helpers/remix)

Make Cookies the User Session Single Source of Truth with Supabase Auth Helpers

The [supabase-js](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/javascript) package allows us to connect to our Supabase project, and easily query and mutate data. In this lesson, we install `supabase-js`, set up environment variables for `SUPABASE_URL` and `SUPABASE_ANON_KEY`, and create a Supabase client to use across our application.

Additionally, we look at writing an RLS policy to enable `read` access to our `messages` table, use our Supabase client to select all messages, and display them in our Remix app on load.

## Code Snippets

**Install supabase-js**

```bash
npm i @supabase/supabase-js
```

**Use a Loader function to fetch data**

```tsx
export const loader = async () => {
  return null;
};
```

**Fetch data with Supabase Client**

```tsx
const { data } = await supabase.from("messages").select();
```

**Full component**

```tsx
import { useLoaderData } from "@remix-run/react";
import supabase from "utils/supabase";

export const loader = async ({}) => {
  const { data } = await supabase.from("messages").select();
  return { data };
};

export default function Index() {
  const { data } = useLoaderData();
  return <pre>{JSON.stringify(data, null, 2)}</pre>;
}
```

**Enable read access with RLS policy**

```sql
create policy "users can read messages" ON "public"."messages"
as permissive for select
to public
using (true);
```

> SQL code snippets can be run against your Supabase database by heading over to your project's [SQL Editor](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/sql), pasting them into a new query, and clicking `RUN`.

## Resources

- [Supabase-js docs](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/javascript)
- [Implement Row Level Security in Supabase (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow_Uzedfohk)
- [Auto-generated project docs](https://app.supabase.com/project/_/api)

Query Supabase Data with Remix Loaders

[Remix](https://remix.run) is a web application framework built on top of React, that gives you sprinkles of server when you need it - fetching data on page load, mutating values in a db etc. In this lesson, we use the `create-remix` package to setup our new app. Additionally, we run the project is development mode with `npm run dev` and update the content on our `index` route.

## Code Snippets

**Create a Remix app**

```bash
npx create-remix <name-of-project>
```

## Resources

- [Remix docs](https://remix.run/docs/en/v1)

Setting Up a Remix Project

[Supabase](http://supabase.com?utm_source=egghead&utm_campaign=remix) is a collection of open-source tools that wrap around a PostgreSQL database. In this course, we look at building a realtime chat application with Remix, using Supabase for db hosting, authentication, authorization and subscribe to realtime db events - updating the UI as the database changes.

We will learn about:

- loaders and actions in Remix
- querying and mutating data with Supabase
- authentication with GitHub
- authorization with RLS
- merging client and server state with realtime events
- deploying a Remix app to Vercel

This course is 100% TypeScript, however, don't stress if you don't have any experience with TS, as Supabase does most of the heavy lifting here! 🎉

TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

typescript

Build a Realtime Chat App with Remix and Supabase

In your pnpm monorepo, you can easily create new applications under your apps folder. 

Here, you'll create a new Remix app by running the command `pnpx create-remix@latest`. The app you generate functions just like any other full featured Remix app!

Add a Remix App to a pnpm Workspace Monorepo

Learn Remix by Building a Social Media Platform with TypeScript and Prisma

In lesson 08, [Deploy a Remix Application](https://egghead.io/lessons/egghead-deploy-a-remix-application-with-production-database-to-the-internet-through-vercel), we said that the app was MVP status. This isn’t quite true for many applications. You will inevitably need users on your site to make it useful for your customers (or even for yourself).

To get started adding users, you will update Prisma with a user model and associate it to Posts. From there you’ll update your posts to display user information. You’ll see how to migrate a Prisma schema in PlanetScale as you deploy these changes.

One nice tid bit you will pick up along the way is a TypeScript 4.5 feature, Awaited. Awaited will unwrap a promise type for you so that you don’t have to do it yourself which is a big relief.

Create and Utilize a User Model with Prisma in Remix

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here with the second issue of AI Dev Essentials! It's been another busy week in the AI tooling world. The biggest splash was probably GPT-4.1 hitting the streets, but there's plenty more action around MCP, Vercel's v0, Google's developer tools, and interesting community discussions. I've spent some time with GPT-4.1 already (specifically in Cursor), and while it shows promise, it didn't quite convince me to switch from Gemini 2.5 Pro yet. It stumbled on a few basic requests where Gemini usually shines on the first attempt.

---

### New egghead.io Lesson This Week:

* **[Create a Custom MCP that Calls Cursor Tools](https://egghead.io/create-a-custom-mcp-that-calls-cursor-tools~r77sw):** Learn how to build custom MCP server tools that allow Cursor's AI Agent to access your local project context. This lesson shows how to use Zod schemas and the crucial `.describe()` method to explicitly request information (like Git status or version) from the Cursor environment *before* your tool runs, enabling powerful, context-aware automation.

---

Here are the highlights that caught my eye this past week.

## Model Mania: GPT-4.1 Arrives, Plus Grok & Llama Updates

* **GPT-4.1 Lands:** OpenAI announced GPT-4.1, and it quickly became available via the [API](https://openai.com/live/) and showed up in [Cursor](https://x.com/cursor_ai/status/1911835651810738406). Cursor is offering it free for now to let users get a feel for it, though they don't recommend it as a default just yet. Curious to hear initial impressions from folks testing it out for coding tasks.

* **Grok 3 in Cursor:** Following other model additions, [Cursor also enabled Grok 3 models](https://x.com/amanrsanger/status/1910434915419906141), with the mini version available for free users. Aman Sanger noted it seems to "think upfront more than other models."

* **Community Hack: Llama 4.0 via Groq in Cursor:** Levi Dan shared a [detailed (and slightly hacky) guide](https://x.com/lxvi_brg/status/1908865544721154455) on how to wire up Groq's fast Llama 4.0 API into Cursor by using the OpenAI API key slot and intercepting requests. A clever workaround for the adventurous!

## Tooling & Platform Pulse

Lots of movement across different platforms and tools this week:

* **Vercel Ecosystem:**

  * Guillermo Rauch teased [v0 coming to VS Code](https://x.com/rauchg/status/1911524154458984515), hinting at tighter integration for the UI generation tool.

  * v0 also [added AI integrations](https://x.com/v0/status/1911912183149256943) with models from xai (Grok), FAL, Groq, and DeepInfra, including automatic API key setup and pay-as-you-go billing via Vercel Marketplace. They're offering a $10 credit for the Grok free tier.

  * Vercel shared insights on the [grep.app migration from CRA to Next.js](http://grep.app/), showcasing performance improvements. ([Source](https://x.com/rauchg/status/1911920410020757881)) I'm personally excited about this one – I rely heavily on examples when working with AI, and for me, a good example is often worth ten prompts. Tools like `grep.app` that make code discovery easier are invaluable.

* **Google's Growing Stack:**

  * Project IDX has officially become [Firebase Studio](https://x.com/_davideast/status/1909990728593453455), positioning itself as a cloud-based, agentic dev environment for full-stack AI apps, deeply integrated with Firebase. I've tried spinning up a few sites with it, and the speed is impressive. However, for more complex tasks like designing from images or intricate interactions, I still find myself leaning towards v0 for now.

  * Google quietly released the [Agent Development Kit (ADK)](https://x.com/omarsar0/status/1910004370864742757), a Python library (`pip install google-adk`) for building multi-agent systems with features like state management, tool usage, and orchestration. I haven't had a chance to dive into this yet, but it's right at the top of my list. Building robust agent systems is a huge area of interest, so this is probably the announcement I'm most excited about exploring this week.

  * Ramón Medrano Llamas shared his experience [moving back to VS Code from Cursor](https://x.com/rmedranollamas/status/1909516749612999149), highlighting the effectiveness of GitHub Copilot combined with the Gemini Code Assist extension (using Gemini 2.5 Pro in Agent Mode). I gave the Gemini Code Assist extension a try myself, but as someone deeply embedded in the Cursor workflow with established keyboard shortcuts and patterns, I struggled to find a flow I liked and didn't stick with it for long. It's interesting to see different perspectives, though!

  * AI features are rolling out more broadly in [Chrome](https://x.com/iam_chonchol/status/1909942954686636224), including text grabbing from YouTube videos and Google Lens integration.

* **Cloudflare Corner:**

  * Big news for edge compute: [Cloudflare Containers are coming to Open Beta in June](https://x.com/CherryJimbo/status/1910682562499850405), enabling running containerized apps (Next.js, Go, PHP confirmed) directly on the edge. This is huge news, in my opinion. Think about all the WordPress sites and other applications that rely on containerization. Opening this up on the edge unlocks incredible possibilities, including for AI applications. I'm super hyped to see what people build with this come June.

  * A new tool, [MCPify.ai](http://mcpify.ai/), launched for building MCP servers conversationally, built entirely on Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects. ([Source](https://x.com/pbteja1998/status/1911723180445610149))

  * Securing MCP servers is getting easier, with examples shared using [WorkOS AuthKit](https://x.com/WorkOS/status/1910722639036874943) and [Auth0](https://x.com/dschenkelman/status/1910693265566728319).

* **IDE Updates:**

  * JetBrains shared the public [WebStorm roadmap for March-April](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WEB-72310). ([Source](https://x.com/WebStormIDE/status/1909291367504748937))

> **✨ Workshop Spotlight: Conquer the Complexity of Cursor (Europe Friendly Time!) ✨**
>
> Missed the last workshop or found the timing tricky? This one's for you! Master practical AI development workflows in Cursor in a session scheduled for **12:00 PM UTC** to better accommodate European attendees.
>
> This hands-on workshop covers Agents, Ask, Custom Modes, multi-file analysis, effective prompting, Cursor rules, and strategies for handling AI failures. Unlock Cursor's potential and streamline your development process.
>
> * **When:** \[Check website for upcoming dates - This session is Europe-friendly at 12:00 PM UTC\]
>
> * **Where:** Zoom (Live Q&A included)
>
> * **Investment:** $149
>
> ➡️ [**Read More about the Workshop**](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)
> ➡️ [**Register Now ($149)**](https://buy.stripe.com/7sI7tT81dfpC06s28c)
>
> *(Team training also available)*

## Community Buzz & Resources

* **MCP Explained:** Kent C. Dodds wrote a piece explaining [why he's excited about Model Context Protocol (MCP)](https://www.epicai.pro/the-game-changing-potential-of-model-context-protocol) and its potential. ([Source](https://x.com/kentcdodds/status/1911840456432034112))

* **Prompting Guide:** Ian Nuttall surfaced [v7 of Google's Prompt Engineering Guide](https://x.com/iannuttall/status/1911086164196606314), a deep dive into techniques and best practices. Definitely worth a look.

* **Discussion Starter:** Eric Zakariasson asked the community about their [favorite CLIs and MCP servers to use with the Cursor agent](https://x.com/ericzakariasson/status/1910808935961088346). What are you all using?

* **Gemini 2.5 Pro Praise:** The positive buzz around Gemini 2.5 Pro continues to grow in the community. It's getting rave reviews and even achieving 'S-tier' status on social platforms like Reddit for its coding capabilities. ([Source](https://x.com/suchenzang/status/1911251230317490416))

That’s a wrap for this week! There's always so much happening, it's hard to keep up, but hopefully, this helps surface some of the more interesting bits for developers working with AI.

If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to respond to this email. Always happy to talk shop about the latest AI tools.

John Lindquist

[egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

John Lindquist

AI Dev Essentials #2: GPT-4.1 Arrives, MCP Deep Dive & Google's Agent Dev Kit

AI Dev Essentials #2: GPT-4.1 & Gemini updates, MCP tools, Vercel v0, Google ADK, Cloudflare Containers news. Latest AI dev tooling highlights.

In this quick walkthrough, you’ll learn how to drop Nx into an existing npm or pnpm workspace and immediately benefit from project graph visualization, caching, and smart task orchestration, all without rewriting your setup.

You’ll start with a standard React monorepo containing a Vite app, a UI package, and utility functions. Then, using a single command (`nx init`), you’ll initialize Nx and see how it auto-detects your existing scripts, builds a dependency graph, and enables advanced features like affected commands and local caching.

We're also going to explore optional enhancements using Nx plugins for Vite and React. You’ll see how they help Nx infer tasks directly from your Vite config files, improve DX with the Nx Console VS Code extension, and leverage Nx plugin generators to scaffold code with a consistent structure.

What you’ll learn
- How to initialize Nx in an existing npm or pnpm monorepo
- How Nx understands your workspace structure and scripts
- How local caching and affected builds speed up development
- How optional Nx plugins improve DX without adding bloat
- How to scaffold new packages

Juri Strumpflohner

Using Nx on an existing React and NPM workspace based monorepo

Applying Nx to an existing React monorepo to enable caching, task orchestration, and project graph analysis without changing your current setup.

Typing repetitive or complex instructions for Cursor's AI agent can slow down your workflow. This lesson teaches you how to create custom slash commands (e.g., `/s term`, `/l`, `/c`) using Cursor's "Rules" feature. Learn how to map these simple shortcuts to specific AI actions, instructing the agent to use precise tools like `codebase_search`, `edit_file`, or `run_terminal_cmd` based on your command and the current conversation context.

**Workflow demonstrated in this lesson:**

*   List available AI tools (built-in and MCP) to get their exact names.
*   Navigate to Cursor Settings -> Rules.
*   Define custom rules under a heading (e.g., `## Slash Commands`).
*   Create rules mapping a slash command pattern (like `/s <term>`) to a detailed instruction specifying which tool to use and how (e.g., "Use the codebase_search tool to search for <term/>").
*   Define rules that leverage conversation context (e.g., for summarizing notes or creating commit messages).
*   Save the rules (potentially in `.cursor/rules/project.mdc` for team sharing).
*   Invoke the custom slash commands (e.g., `/s handle`, `/l`, `/c`) in the chat/agent window.
*   Observe the AI understanding the shortcut and executing the intended tool call.

**Key benefits:**

*   Creates efficient, reusable shortcuts for common AI interactions.
*   Reduces the need for typing lengthy, detailed prompts repeatedly.
*   Allows mapping simple commands to specific Cursor tool invocations.
*   Enables commands that leverage the ongoing conversation context.
*   Improves workflow speed and consistency when working with the AI agent.

Speed Up Your Agents with Cursor Slash Commands

Hey Everyone 👋,

John Lindquist here. Since I've been diving deep into AI tooling and workflows over the past year, I'm starting this weekly newsletter to share updates on what interests me and could be helpful to the community. The goal is to help everyone stay up-to-date with the latest in essentials tools for AI devs.

I'll focus on relevant community news, model evaluations for coding, notable tools like Cursor and Windsurf, and practical workflows (including tools I build myself 😇). This week kicks off Cloudflare Developer Week with major announcements around agent/MCP services that many of us will likely use soon (I'll dig in and share my thoughts next issue). There are also lots of hints about new coding models possibly coming to Cursor (though my preference remains Gemini 2.5). Personally, I'm hoping for a Gemini Flash 2.5 variant. So let's hop into the latest! For my detailed, up-to-date workflows, check out the workshop info below.

Recent egghead.io lessons about AI tooling:

* **[Swarm Intelligence: Massively Parallelize Your AI Agents in Cursor](https://egghead.io/swarm-intelligence-massively-parallelize-your-ai-agents-in-cursor~g7u2g):** A workflow using `file-forge`, AI scripting, and a custom `git worktree` tool (`wt`) to launch parallel Cursor agents on different branches.
* **[Build a Better Edit Tool in Cursor with Custom Agent Modes](https://egghead.io/build-a-better-edit-tool-in-cursor-with-custom-agent-modes~21rr0):** Create a focused 'edit mode' in Cursor for precise AI refactors without conversational overhead, overcoming Command-K limitations.
* **[Visually Clone Websites with Gemini 2.5 Canvas for Cursor](https://egghead.io/visually-clone-websites-with-gemini-2-5-canvas-for-cursor~s5ugk):** Use Gemini 2.5 Pro's Canvas feature within Cursor to analyze and replicate website structures.

---

## Cloudflare Developer Week: Agent & Platform Updates

Cloudflare announced several updates relevant to AI application development:

* **Durable Objects Free Tier:** Lowers the barrier for experimenting with stateful serverless and the Agents SDK. ([Rita Kozlov](https://x.com/ritakozlov_/status/1909231625855983939))
* **MCP Enhancements:** BYO Auth (incl. [Auth0](https://x.com/auth0/status/1909307220816228354)) and Hibernation for MCP servers aim to improve agent security and efficiency. Exercise caution with MCP, but these are steps toward production viability.
* **Workflows GA & autoRAG:** Orchestration tool is now GA; a new autoRAG product indicates more integrated AI solutions.
* **Outerbase Acquisition:** Expect Durable Objects usability improvements following this acquisition. ([Rita Kozlov](https://x.com/ritakozlov_/status/1909232149246492887))
* **OpenNext Adapter Beta:** v1.0-beta for deploying Next.js apps on Cloudflare Pages adds caching, PPR, middleware support. ([CloudflareDev](https://x.com/CloudflareDev/status/1909598450871652398))

**Summary:** Cloudflare is actively enhancing its platform for AI/agent development, particularly reducing friction with Durable Objects and MCP.

## Llama 4 & Nemotron-Ultra Released

Meta's Llama 4 models began rolling out, with initial reports of variable quality across implementations. Meta attributes this to implementation stabilization, denying training on test sets ([Ahmad Al-Dahle](https://x.com/Ahmad_Al_Dahle/status/1909302532306092107)). Nvidia subsequently released **Llama-Nemotron-Ultra** (253B parameters), derived from Llama-405B via pruning and reasoning-focused post-training. Open weights and data are available ([Oleksii Kuchaiev](https://x.com/kuchaev/status/1909444566379573646)).

**Summary:** More powerful open models are available. Llama 4's initial rollout highlights the importance of stable implementations. Nemotron-Ultra adds a high-end specialized option.

---

## Quasar Alpha: Stealth Model on OpenRouter

OpenRouter provides early access to "Quasar Alpha," a model with limited public details but notable claims: 1M token context, benchmarks reportedly surpassing Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and >4x faster speeds. Reports suggest strong coding performance comparable to O3 Mini/DeepSeek R1 but significantly faster ([Matthew Berman's Thread](https://x.com/TheMattBerman/status/1908286423976886371)). The originating lab remains anonymous; speculation includes GPT-5, Claude 4, or Gemini 3.

**Summary:** The combination of large context, speed, and reported coding strength warrants attention for agentic workflows and large codebase analysis, despite benchmark caveats. Worth testing via OpenRouter if accessible.

---

**✨ Workshop Spotlight: Conquer the Complexity of Cursor ✨**

Master practical AI development workflows in Cursor. This hands-on workshop covers Agents, Ask, Custom Modes, multi-file analysis, effective prompting, Cursor rules, and strategies for handling AI failures.

* **When:** **This Thursday!** April 10, 2025, 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM (PDT)
* **Where:** Zoom (Live Q&A included)
* **Investment:** $149

Unlock Cursor's potential and streamline your development process.

➡️ [**Read More about the Workshop**](https://egghead.io/workshop/cursor)
➡️ [**Register Now ($149)**](https://buy.stripe.com/dR67tT4P17Xa8CYfZ1)

*(Team training also available)*

---

## Quick Links

* **Nightwhisper Buzz:** Highly-rated coding model "Nightwhisper" (rumored Gemini 2.5 variant?) left LMSys Arena; release may be imminent. ([ʟᴇɢɪᴛ Tweet](https://x.com/legit_api/status/1908264443827351913), [AiBattle Tweet](https://x.com/AiBattle_/status/1907519430961025476))
* **AI SDK Speech-to-Text:** Vercel AI SDK added a `transcribe` function. ([AI SDK Tweet](https://x.com/aisdk/status/1909603418639155460))
* **Gemini 2.5 Pro Updates:** Supports YouTube URLs as input in AI Studio (transcribe, summarize, analyze); reported improvements reducing stop issues/displaying thinking tokens. ([Jean Gatt Tweet](https://x.com/jean__gatt/status/1909256747518226829), [Eric Zakariasson Tweet](https://x.com/ericzakariasson/status/1908619515023548880))
* **Baby Cursor Project:** Cursor's Ryo Lu is building a rapid prototyping environment for IDE ideas. ([Ryo Lu Tweet](https://x.com/ryolu_/status/1908328050154233863))
* **(Rumor) Qwen3 Soon?:** Hints suggest Alibaba's Qwen3 model release is near. ([Elaina Tweet](https://x.com/Elaina43114880/status/1909572798944841859))

---

If you have any feedback or any questions, feel free to respond to this email. Always happy to talk shop about the latest AI tools.

John Lindquist

[egghead.io](https://egghead.io)

AI Dev Essentials #1: Cloudflare agent updates, Llama 4/Nemotron/Quasar models, Cursor workshop

Cursor's AI Agent has the abilitly to invoke MCP tools, but they lack direct access to your project. This lesson shows how to build custom MCP (Model Context Protocol) server tools that bridge this gap. Learn to define tool parameters using Zod schemas and the crucial `.describe()` method to explicitly request necessary context from the Cursor environment *before* your tool runs. See how the AI gathers this information (like Git status or version via terminal commands, or web search results) and passes it to your tool, enabling powerful, context-aware automation.

**Workflow demonstrated in this lesson:**

*   Scaffold a basic MCP server using a Cloudflare template (`pnpm create cloudflare`).
*   Run the MCP server locally and configure it in Cursor settings.
*   Define MCP tools (e.g., `status`) within the server code (`index.ts`).
*   Specify required context for tools using Zod schema parameters and `.describe()` (e.g., requesting "The status of the git repository").
*   Interact with the Cursor Agent using natural language (e.g., "Please check the status").
*   Observe the Agent's thought process: identifying the need for specific context based on the `.describe()` text.
*   See the Agent automatically using its *own* tools (like `run_terminal_cmd` or `web_search`) to gather the requested context *before* calling your MCP tool.
*   Watch the Agent call your MCP tool, passing the gathered local context (Git status, version, etc.) as arguments.
*   Receive the final response from the Agent, incorporating the information provided by your local MCP tool.

**Key benefits:**

*   Allows Cursor's AI to access and reason about information from your local machine (Git status, versions, file contents, etc.).
*   Enables the creation of AI tools that directly interact with or report on your local development environment.
*   Demonstrates the power of using `.describe()` in Zod schemas to guide the AI in gathering necessary context automatically.
*   Unlocks advanced automation possibilities by combining AI reasoning with local machine access.

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