Requirements: the-loop should be compatible with Cursor

Source of truth: GitHub issue #12 is the canonical requirements input for this work item. This file distills it into reviewable, testable requirements. Design and the task DAG live in design.md and tasks.md.

Introduction

the-loop ships as a Claude Code plugin; decision-001 left Cursor distribution as a TODO. This work item researches Cursor's equivalent of Claude plugins and packages the-loop for Cursor, reusing the existing skills, commands and templates rather than forking them.

Requirements

R1 — Research Cursor's plugin equivalent

User story: As the-loop's maintainer, I want a documented answer to "what is the Cursor equivalent of Claude plugins", so that distribution decisions rest on facts.

1. the-loop SHALL document what Cursor offers as the equivalent of Claude Code plugins (manifests, component types, discovery, installation) in a decision record.
2. The research SHALL identify which existing artifacts (skills, commands, hooks) are reusable as-is and which need a Cursor-native replacement.

R2 — Installable in Cursor from this repo

User story: As a Cursor user, I want to install the-loop directly from GitHub, so that I get the same loop without a separate distribution channel.

1. The repository SHALL carry a Cursor plugin manifest (.cursor-plugin/plugin.json) and marketplace manifest (.cursor-plugin/marketplace.json).
2. WHEN the plugin is installed in Cursor THEN the existing skills/ and commands/ SHALL be reused verbatim (no duplicated content per harness).
3. The Claude Code plugin SHALL be unaffected (same .claude-plugin/ manifests, same hooks/hooks.json).

R3 — Session reminder parity in Cursor

1. Cursor sessions SHALL receive the same "the-loop is initialized here" reminder that Claude Code gets via the SessionStart hook, using a Cursor-native mechanism.
2. The mechanism SHALL NOT fire misleadingly in projects where the-loop is not initialized (guarded, like the hook's test -f .the-loop/config.yaml).

R4 — Docs reflect dual-harness support

1. README (install, layout), the skill + its references, the architecture doc, the roadmap and the decision log SHALL be updated to describe Claude Code and Cursor support, resolving the open question "find the Cursor equivalent of marketplace distribution".

Non-functional requirements

• New JSON manifests are validated in CI alongside the Claude ones.
• All quality gates stay green: ruff, pyright, pytest, markdownlint, schema validation.

Out of scope (this work item)

• Cursor-only surface: agents/ subagents, Cursor-format hooks (e.g. beforeShellExecution quality gates), MCP server definitions.
• Publishing to Cursor's curated marketplace listing (install-from-repo suffices).
• Verifying behaviour inside a live Cursor install (no Cursor runtime in CI).