> We find that the adoption of Cursor leads to a significant, large, but transient increase in project-level development velocity, along with a significant and persistent increase in static analysis warnings and code complexity. Further panel generalized method of moments estimation reveals that the increase in static analysis warnings and code complexity acts as a major factor causing long-term velocity slowdown.
> In contrast to the transient velocity gains, Cursor adoption shows
more sustained patterns across static analysis warnings and code
complexity, with evidence of sustained technical debt accumulation.
> We find that the adoption of Cursor leads to a significant, large, but transient increase in project-level development velocity, along with a significant and persistent increase in static analysis warnings and code complexity. Further panel generalized method of moments estimation reveals that the increase in static analysis warnings and code complexity acts as a major factor causing long-term velocity slowdown.
> In contrast to the transient velocity gains, Cursor adoption shows more sustained patterns across static analysis warnings and code complexity, with evidence of sustained technical debt accumulation.