XState migration with looked-up docs
Kent had Cursor look up XState migration docs, plan the upgrade, and migrate about 200 lines of recorder state-machine code carefully in a fresh conversation.
- Agent or tool
- Cursor
- Topic
- Software Development
- Reported on
- Blog
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Coding agents are moving from autocomplete to doing whole tasks: reading a codebase, making a plan and changing many files. This case is a concrete example of where that works in practice. It is one of 106 sightings filed under Software Development on Agent Sightings (number 46 by interest), and one of 30 involving Cursor.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into Cursor or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Update xstate and @xstate/react. Before editing, look up the official migration docs and follow them. Keep behavior identical and list any API changes you made.
The prompt breaks down into 3 steps you can check as the agent works:
- Update xstate and @xstate/react.
- Before editing, look up the official migration docs and follow them.
- Keep behavior identical and list any API changes you made.
Tip: Work on a fresh branch, ask for a plan before edits, and review the diff and test results before merging.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Blog: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/how-i-used-cursor-to-migrate-frameworks. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.
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