Use Cursor with GitHub Codespaces

Cursor is a lightning-fast, AI-powered code editor. GitHub Codespaces gives you a prebuilt cloud dev environment. Connecting the two gives you the power of a cloud IDE with the feel of a local editor.

Here’s how to set them up to work together — and what to do when it doesn’t work.

✅ What you’ll get

Use Cursor to edit code inside a live GitHub Codespace

Push to GitHub, deploy, run, test — all from within Cursor

No fake "remote folders", this is the actual Codespace

Prerequisites

A GitHub Codespace already created

GitHub CLI installed (gh)

Cursor installed (https://cursor.sh)

SSH working on your machine

Problem

Failure to connect to a GitHub codespace when using Cursor

Solution

Download the “Remote-SSH” extension/plugin if you haven’t already.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to select your GitHub codespace as an option.

🔐 Step 0: Set up your SSH key (first-time only)

Create an SSH key.

Upload it to GitHub.

If you haven’t used SSH with GitHub before, you’ll need to create a key and upload it to your GitHub account.

✅ Check if you already have a key:

ls ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

If that file exists, skip to Step 1.

✅ If not, generate a new key:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

Press Enter to accept the default file location

Set a passphrase if you want (or leave blank for simplicity)

Then add the key to your SSH agent:

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

✅ Upload the key to GitHub:

Copy it:

cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Then go to https://github.com/settings/keys → New SSH key → paste it in → give it a name (e.g., MacBook).

🔐 Step 1: Authenticate with GitHub CLI

Run:

gh auth login

Select: GitHub.com

Choose protocol: HTTPS or SSH

✅ Make sure it says:

Logged in as your-username

🔗 Step 2: Generate SSH config for your Codespace

Run this:

gh codespace ssh --config

This outputs a block like:

Host cs.friendly-mongoose-xyz.main
  User vscode
  ProxyCommand /usr/local/bin/gh cs ssh -c friendly-mongoose-xyz --stdio -- -i /Users/you/.ssh/codespaces.auto
  IdentityFile /Users/you/.ssh/codespaces.auto
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
  ControlMaster auto
  LogLevel quiet

✍️ Step 3: Add it to your SSH config

Append it to your SSH config file:

gh codespace ssh --config >> ~/.ssh/config

This tells SSH (and Cursor) how to connect to your running Codespace.

🧭 Step 4: Fix Cursor’s Remote SSH settings

By default, Cursor may look at the wrong SSH config file.

Cmd+Shift+P → type Remote-SSH: Settings

This is essential. If it points to something like ~/.ssh/devboxes, you won’t see any Codespaces listed.

Change SSH config path to:

~/.ssh/config

I had to change my settings from ~/.ssh/devboxes (no such file exists) to ~/.ssh/config (which is the file we made/updated in the last step).

🚀 Step 5: Connect

Cmd+Shift+P → Remote-SSH: Connect to Host…

You’ll now see your Codespace (e.g. cs.friendly-mongoose-xyz.main)

Click it — you're in 🎉

You’re now running Cursor connected over SSH to your GitHub-hosted Codespace.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

❗ 1. "No Codespaces appear" in `Connect to Host…`

Fix: Make sure Cursor is looking at the correct config file (~/.ssh/config), not ~/.ssh/devboxes.

Cmd-Shift-P, select “Connect to Host…”

By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to select your GitHub codespace as an option.

If you don’t see your codespace

A - Cmd-Shift-P “Remote - SSH settings”

Check that it’s reading the correct local ssh config file.

B - [not sure if this step is necessary] Try starting the codespace (on GitHub.com/codespaces or in VS Code), or Ensure it’s running with gh codespace list.

❗ 2. "Permission denied" or "403 Unauthorized" errors from `gh`

The GitHub CLI may be missing required scopes. Run:

gh auth refresh -h github.com -s codespace,admin:public_key,read:org

✅ This upgrades your auth token to allow Codespace access via SSH.

You may be prompted to re-authenticate in the browser.

❗ 3. `gh codespace ssh --config` fails with “no SSH server installed”

If your Codespace was rebuilt recently, you may need to add SSH support:

Edit your .devcontainer/devcontainer.json:


"features": {
  "ghcr.io/devcontainers/features/sshd:1": {
    "version": "latest"
  }
}

Then rebuild the container (Cmd+Shift+P → "Rebuild Container").

❗ 4. “Where’s my code?” after connecting

Once connected, run:

ls /workspaces
cd /workspaces/your-repo-name

That’s where GitHub mounts your codebase inside the container.

You can also click “Open Folder” and browse to /workspaces/your-repo-name.

⚠️ Do NOT accidentally attempt your old “connect to codespace” flow.

Instead, click “File → Open folder”.

Type “workspaces”.

Select your project within (mine is called awe2023 )

In my case, that’s /workspaces/awe2023 →”OK”

In terms of folder structure, I first arrived into home/vscode/

the workspaces/ folder is a sibling folder of home/

$ pwd
/home/vscode
@markitics ➜ ~ $ ls
@markitics ➜ ~ $ ls ../..
bin   dev  home  lib64  mnt  proc  run   srv  tmp  var     workspaces
boot  etc  lib   media  opt  root  sbin  sys  usr  vscode
@markitics ➜ ~ $ cd ../../workspaces/
@markitics ➜ /workspaces $ ls
awe2023
@markitics ➜ /workspaces $ cd awe2023/

❗ 5. ”Dev Container” popup: dismiss

If you get this pop-up in the bottom left corner, dismiss it:

You’re already SSH’d into the running container via Cursor. If you click “Reopen in Container,” Cursor will try to create a new Docker container inside the Codespace, which isn’t what you want, probably won’t work cleanly, wI’ll break the current setup.

🧠 Under the Hood

The gh CLI handles OAuth, SSH key generation, and Codespace access.

Cursor (like VS Code) uses the Remote - SSH plugin and reads from ~/.ssh/config

The Codespace itself runs an SSH server, enabled via the sshd feature

codespaces.auto is the default key GitHub generates for SSH access — you don’t need to create your own

The original motivation that “hm, maybe I can indeed do it with the “Remote - SSH” plugin was this helpful blog post by @NFAblog.

✅ Summary

Now you’re using Cursor + GitHub Codespaces like a pro. Fast local editing with real cloud compute.

About this post

Most of the above blog post was written by ChatGPT and I haven’t proof-read it in detail. I (Mark Moriarty) can confirm I did get Cursor working for me, can get Cursor composer to suggest and implement edits, I can git push after I’ve committed changes, and I can eb deploy to deploy an updated app to Elastic Beanstalk. (I had to manually install awscli, eb cli, and I customised my ~/.git/config to include personalized shortcuts).

Once again, the main unlock is copying gh codespace ssh --config to local ~/.ssh/config, which I found on https://medium.com/@NFAblog/connect-github-codespaces-to-cursor-ai-ai-friendly-vs-code-clone-243fa5f79414