Your Cursor Could Use a Buddy
Ever lost fifteen minutes of productive time simply because you did not notice your Cursor IDE session was waiting for your input? You are working across three different projects, context-switching between refactoring legacy code and building new features, and somewhere in that chaos, one of your sessions went idle twenty minutes ago.
Here's what's actually happening: developers using Cursor IDE—particularly those managing multiple concurrent sessions—lose measurable productivity to a simple awareness problem. You cannot see when a session pauses or needs input without actively checking each window. Those minutes add up across a team. Across a sprint. Across a quarter.
The solution is not another dashboard you need to remember to check. It is a physical device that sits on your desk and tells you exactly when attention is required.
The Problem with Modern Development Workflows
Cursor IDE has become a critical tool for AI-empowered development teams. Its ability to integrate large language models directly into the coding workflow accelerates feature development and reduces the cognitive load of context-switching between documentation, Stack Overflow, and your actual codebase.
But that acceleration creates a new bottleneck: session management. When you are running multiple Cursor instances—working on microservices architecture, managing parallel feature branches, or supporting multiple client codebases—you need to know which session requires your attention and which is actively processing.
The cost is not trivial. A developer losing three minutes per interruption, four times per day, across a ten-person team, represents two full working days lost per sprint. That is time that could be spent on technical debt reduction, architectural improvements, or simply shipping features faster.
What Cursor Buddy Does
Cursor Buddy is an open-source hardware device that monitors all your active Cursor IDE sessions and provides both visual and audible alerts when any session requires input or changes state.
Built on a Waveshare ESP32-S3 microcontroller with a 2.1-inch round capacitive touch display, the device connects to your network via WiFi and continuously polls session status. When idle, it displays practical information: current date, time, temperature, weather conditions, and battery level. When you have active sessions running, it switches to monitoring mode.
The device captures all sessions with scrolling display capability. When a session needs attention—paused for input, waiting on a response, or encountering an error—Cursor Buddy automatically displays the session name, current status, and elapsed time since the last state change. You get both a visual alert on the LCD screen and an audible chime.
The hardware includes a LiPo battery, making it portable enough to move between workspaces or take around the office or home. The form factor is small enough to fit on a crowded desk but large enough to be readable from normal working distance.
For teams that prefer not to build custom hardware, there is an alternative deployment: install the monitoring service on any server and access session status through a standard web browser on your phone or laptop.
How This Started
The inspiration came from Claude Buddies—small hardware devices that community members built to monitor Claude API usage and token consumption. Those devices demonstrated a practical truth: sometimes the best interface for certain information is not another browser tab or mobile notification. It is a dedicated physical device with a single purpose.
I built Cursor Buddy as an improved iteration on that concept, specifically optimized for development workflows. The original Claude Buddies focused on API consumption metrics. Cursor Buddy focuses on session state and attention management—the actual bottleneck in multi-session development work.
The build process required integrating ESP32 hardware with WiFi connectivity, designing a monitoring service that could poll Cursor IDE session state without impacting performance, and creating a display interface that balanced information density with readability.
Technical Requirements and Build Process
This is not a consumer product with a simple setup wizard. Cursor Buddy is an open-source project designed for developers who are comfortable following technical documentation and troubleshooting hardware integration issues.
The complete source code, hardware specifications, and build instructions are available at [https://github.com/wcarper-cogsentia/Cursor-Buddy](https://github.com/wcarper-cogsentia/Cursor-Buddy). The documentation assumes developer-level technical capability—you should be comfortable with microcontroller programming, WiFi network configuration, and basic electronics assembly, and 3D printing.
Key components include:
- Waveshare ESP32-S3 development board with integrated WiFi and 2.1-inch round capacitive touch LCD display
- 3.7V 2000mAh Rechargeable LiPo Battery, 103450
- Custom firmware for session monitoring and display management backend service for polling Cursor IDE session state are available on the Github repository.
Setup requires following the GitHub repository instructions step by step. You will need to configure WiFi credentials, set up the monitoring service on a machine that can access your Cursor IDE sessions, and flash the firmware to the ESP32 device.
The build process takes approximately two to four hours for someone with hands-on experience in embedded systems. If you are new to ESP32 development, expect to spend additional time on toolchain setup and troubleshooting. If you are a Cursor user, simply tell Cursor that you are building an IoT device it will handle the addition of the [Platform.io](http://Platform.io) plugin, as well as flashing the device with simple prompt (unbelievably awesome in my opinion!)
Alternative Deployment: Service Only
If building custom hardware does not align with your workflow or timeline, you can deploy just the monitoring service component. Install it on any server or always-on workstation that has network access to your development environment.
Once running, access session status through any web browser on your phone, tablet, or secondary monitor. The web interface provides the same information as the physical device: session names, current status, elapsed time, and visual alerts for sessions requiring attention.
This approach works particularly well for teams that want centralized monitoring across multiple developers. A single service instance can monitor sessions for an entire development team, with each team member accessing status through their preferred device.
The tradeoff is attention management. A browser tab requires you to remember to check it. A physical device sitting on your desk provides passive awareness—you see the status change without actively seeking the information.
Practical Value for Development Teams
The value proposition is straightforward: reduce wasted time checking session status and improve context-switching efficiency when managing multiple concurrent development efforts.
For individual developers working on complex refactoring efforts or legacy modernization projects—where you might have multiple branches open simultaneously—Cursor Buddy provides immediate feedback on which branch needs attention and which is actively processing.
For teams working on microservices architectures or multi-repository projects, centralized monitoring through the web interface creates visibility across all active development work. A tech lead can see at a glance which services have sessions waiting for input and which are progressing normally.
The cost to implement is minimal: component costs for the hardware build run approximately fifty to seventy-five dollars, and the time investment is a few hours of assembly and configuration. The monitoring service itself runs on existing infrastructure with negligible resource consumption.
Get Started with the Open-Source Repository
Cursor Buddy exists as a free, open-source project because solving this workflow problem benefits the entire development community. The repository includes complete build instructions, source code, and hardware specifications.
Visit [https://github.com/wcarper-cogsentia/Cursor-Buddy](https://github.com/wcarper-cogsentia/Cursor-Buddy) to access everything you need to build your own device or deploy the monitoring service. The documentation walks through hardware assembly, firmware installation, service configuration, and troubleshooting common issues.
This is developer-to-developer documentation. It assumes you can read technical specifications and debug configuration problems. If you encounter issues, the repository includes a discussion forum where community members share solutions and improvements.
A Note About Pre-Built Devices
While Cursor Buddy is fundamentally a build-it-yourself project, Cogsentia will send a pre-built device as a thank-you for any referral that leads to an engagement conversation. If you know an organization that could benefit from AI-empowered transformation services, governance frameworks, or accelerated software development approaches—reach out through the Cogsentia website with the referral details.
This is not a sales program. It is recognition that valuable connections deserve tangible appreciation.
The Bigger Picture
Cursor Buddy represents a specific solution to a narrow problem: session awareness in multi-instance development workflows. But it also demonstrates a broader principle about AI-empowered development—the tools that amplify developer productivity often create new workflow challenges that require creative solutions.
As development teams adopt more AI-integrated tools and manage increasingly complex distributed architectures, the friction points shift. We trade the cognitive load of remembering API signatures for the cognitive load of managing multiple AI-assisted sessions. We trade time spent on boilerplate code for time spent on context-switching between parallel development efforts.
The organizations that accelerate digital transformation most effectively are the ones that identify these new friction points quickly and address them pragmatically. Sometimes the solution is a sophisticated platform. Sometimes it is a small hardware device with a single clear purpose.
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About the Author: Walt Carper brings 25+ years of experience leading technology modernization and AI adoption programs across public and private sectors. As founder of Cogsentia, he helps organizations implement AI-empowered transformation with practical, governance-aware approaches that deliver measurable results. Connect at [www.cogsentia.com](http://www.cogsentia.com).
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Tags: Session, Development, Cursor, Device, Hardware