Getting Least Privilege Right for Cursor

Many assume that handing every developer a personal Cursor API key automatically enforces least privilege. In reality, those keys often grant unrestricted access to all repositories, environments, and data the organization stores in Cursor, leaving no room for fine‑grained control.

Teams typically start by creating a single service account in Cursor, copying its secret into a shared vault, and letting engineers embed it in their IDE extensions or CI pipelines. The secret is static, the scope is all‑inclusive, and the connection goes straight from the developer’s machine to Cursor’s cloud endpoint. Because the request bypasses any intermediate control point, there is no audit of which queries were run, no way to block a dangerous operation, and no ability to hide sensitive fields such as internal API tokens that might be returned in a code completion.

Why “least privilege” alone isn’t enough

Moving to scoped API tokens is a step in the right direction. Cursor supports token scopes that can limit access to specific projects or environments, and many teams adopt those scopes to satisfy a basic least privilege model. However, the token still travels directly to Cursor’s service. The gateway that could inspect the request, enforce per‑command policies, or require a human approval for high‑risk actions is missing. Without a data‑path control, you still lack:

• Visibility into who ran which query and when.
• Real‑time blocking of commands that could exfiltrate secrets.
• Inline masking of sensitive response fields before they reach the developer’s console.
• Just‑in‑time approval workflows for privileged operations.

These gaps mean the least privilege promise is only theoretical; a compromised token can still be abused with no detection or mitigation.

hoop.dev as the enforcement layer

Enter hoop.dev. It is a Layer 7, identity‑aware proxy that sits in the data path between any caller, human, CI job, or AI‑assistant, and Cursor. hoop.dev authenticates the caller via OIDC or SAML, reads group membership, and then makes an authorization decision before forwarding the request to Cursor. Because the gateway is the only place the traffic passes, it can:

• Apply least privilege policies at the command level, allowing a developer to query only the repositories they own.
• Record every session for replay, giving auditors a complete history of who asked what of Cursor.
• Mask sensitive response fields, such as embedded API keys, so they never appear in a developer’s terminal.
• Require just‑in‑time approvals for high‑risk queries, routing them to a reviewer before they reach Cursor.

These enforcement outcomes exist only because hoop.dev occupies the data path. The surrounding setup, identity providers, scoped tokens, and network placement, decides who may initiate a request, but without hoop.dev there is no place to enforce the policies described above.

How the architecture fits together

First, an organization configures an OIDC identity provider (Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, etc.) and registers it with hoop.dev. Users obtain short‑lived identity tokens that hoop.dev validates on each connection attempt. Next, the team registers the Cursor endpoint as a connection in hoop.dev, supplying a service credential that hoop.dev stores securely. The credential never leaves the gateway, so even a compromised developer machine cannot extract it.

When a developer runs a Cursor client, the traffic is routed to hoop.dev instead of directly to the Cursor service. hoop.dev inspects the request, checks the caller’s groups against the configured least privilege policy, and either forwards the request, blocks it, or pauses it for approval. The response follows the same path, allowing hoop.dev to mask any fields before they reach the client. Every interaction is logged and can be replayed later for audit or forensic analysis.

Getting started

Because hoop.dev is open source and MIT‑licensed, teams can self‑host the gateway in a Docker Compose environment or on Kubernetes. The quick‑start guide walks you through deploying the gateway, connecting an OIDC provider, and registering a Cursor target. Detailed feature documentation is available in the learn section of the site.

FAQ

Q: Do I need to change my existing Cursor client?
A: No. hoop.dev acts as a transparent proxy, so the same CLI or IDE integration works without code changes. You only point the client at the hoop.dev address instead of the native Cursor endpoint.

Q: How does hoop.dev protect the Cursor API key?
A: The key is stored inside the gateway and never exposed to callers. When a request is authorized, hoop.dev injects the key on behalf of the caller, keeping it out of logs and out of developer machines.

Q: Can I still use scoped tokens with hoop.dev?
A: Yes. hoop.dev can evaluate the scopes embedded in the token and combine them with its own policy rules to enforce a true least privilege model.

Explore the code

All of the enforcement logic lives in the open‑source repository. Explore the source on GitHub to see how the gateway processes Cursor traffic, records sessions, and applies inline masking.