Minor Adventures has revealed the creation process for Cursor's new icon system. The post was published on July 30, 2026. The project took approximately one year to complete and involved redrawing over 600 icons in two sizes and two styles.

Cursor is an AI coding tool that originated in the VS Code ecosystem. Its initial icons were a mix of Codicons, the open-source icon set used by VS Code, and custom icons added later. Over time, styles and uses changed, making it difficult to explain Cursor's unique concepts. Features such as AI agents, parallel execution, level of thought, cost and computation, and Bugbot were difficult to adequately handle using only a standard icon library.

The new Cursor icon was created in two sizes: 16px and 24px. The 16px icon uses a line thickness of 1.25px, while the 24px icon features a line thickness of 1.5px and slightly more detail. This is not a method of simply enlarging a small icon, but rather a method of creating a separate design tailored to the size, similar to the optical size of a font.

The design approach is akin to a technical drawing. Horizontal, vertical, and 45-degree lines were used as the basis, with other angles used only when necessary. Corners were adjusted to be neither too sharp nor too soft. Repeating elements such as folders, files, arrows, badges, dots, and parentheses were managed in a consistent form. Over 155 repeating elements and attributes were tracked to ensure the entire set appeared as if it came from a single hand.

Optical correction has also been applied to ensure good visibility at small sizes. Small gaps have been created where lines meet, and line thickness has been reduced where multiple lines overlap. The spacing between overlapping shapes has also been maintained above a certain standard. While these adjustments are not very noticeable on the screen, they reduce issues such as icons appearing blurry or heavy.

The completed deliverables consist of Figma originals, SVGs, icon fonts, an internal search site, and a deployment pipeline. The new icons were designed to maintain existing code points to ensure that existing references within the product are not broken. The Cursor icon system demonstrates that as AI coding tools expand their functionality, the visual language must also be managed alongside them.

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https://www.minoradventures.co/blog/the-making-of-cursors-icons