Put PRI guardrails in the editor without overstating Cursor support

AI-generated changes can look complete while leaving behind brittle error handling, dependency risks or other reliability gaps. Catching those problems while editing is cheaper than finding them after a pull request reaches CI. Tomosu’s free VS Code plugin offers one place to add that early check: it displays inline findings and fixes, and does not require an account.

There is an important boundary for developers searching for a “Cursor AI governance plugin” or a “local code reliability scan.” The product facts available here establish a free VS Code plugin. They do not establish a native Cursor plugin, a Cursor setup procedure or that PRI calculations happen entirely on your machine. Treat “local” as an editing-stage guardrail, not a claim about where computation runs.

Set up the VS Code guardrail

1. Install the free Tomosu plugin from the VS Code Marketplace. An account is not required to install it.

2. Open the file you plan to change and use the plugin’s inline findings as you work. Tomosu describes the plugin as showing findings and fixes in the editor, with PRI information and recommendations available in its scan experience.

3. Read each finding in context. Check the relevant code path and decide whether the suggested fix fits the behavior you intend. A recommendation is a prompt for engineering judgment, not an instruction to accept blindly.

4. After applying a fix, review the resulting change and run the tests and checks your project requires. The plugin is an early reliability signal; it does not replace those checks or a human review.

PRI is based on seven sub-indexes. The plugin’s view can help surface which reliability areas have findings or data, but do not treat a single score as a complete account of a file’s safety. A strong workflow asks what changed, which risk the finding identifies and whether the proposed correction addresses that risk without changing intended behavior.

Use Cursor carefully

Do not assume a VS Code extension is supported in Cursor just because both are editors. The product facts here confirm the VS Code plugin and mention Cursor among editor contexts, but they do not confirm that the free plugin installs in Cursor or displays its findings there. Check Tomosu’s current documentation before treating Cursor as covered. If you cannot verify that findings appear in the editor, record that limitation instead of reporting the IDE guardrail as active.

That distinction matters for governance. A team can use Cursor to generate code and still have an editor-level blind spot if its reliability check is not actually available in that workflow. Avoid promising developers inline PRI scoring until someone has confirmed the integration and observed the results in the relevant setup.

For background on choosing a workflow surface, the case for matching guardrails to where developers need context is a useful starting point. The practical test is simple: can the developer see and act on a reliability finding before the change leaves the editor?

Keep the pre-commit signal in perspective

An inline finding can prompt a fix before a commit, but it is not the same as a repository-wide review or a pull-request decision. For broader coverage, Tomosu also offers a read-only scanner for public or private GitHub repositories. Its GitHub App posts reliability reviews and PRI deltas on pull requests. Those are separate surfaces; use them when the workflow needs a repository baseline or a shared review point, rather than assuming an editor plugin covers every change.

A simple rollout can start with one developer and one representative change. Install the VS Code plugin, inspect its findings while editing, and compare the recommendations with the project’s tests and review process. Note which issues it catches early and which checks still happen later. Expand use only after the team understands that boundary.

Good IDE guardrails reduce the time between introducing a fragile change and noticing it. They do not make generated code reliable by default, and they do not establish coverage in an editor without a verified integration. Start with what the plugin demonstrably does in VS Code, keep human review in the loop, and treat Cursor support as unconfirmed until tested against current documentation.