I use three AI coding tools. Yes, three. I know how that sounds. But Claude Code, Cursor, and Augment Code each do something the others genuinely can’t, and none of them is the best at everything.

What surprised me wasn’t how they differ — it was how much they overlap. These tools can read each other’s configuration files, share context through open protocols, and increasingly converge on the same patterns. Running all three isn’t the burden it used to be.

Here’s where each one shines, where each one falls on its face, and how to wire them together.

The Configuration Landscape: More Shared Than You’d Think

Let’s start with the thing that makes a multi-tool workflow viable: shared configuration. Because if you had to maintain three separate instruction systems, this article would be called “Just Pick One.”

Each tool has its own context file. Claude Code reads CLAUDE.md. Cursor reads .cursor/rules/. Augment Code reads .augment/rules/. Three systems — great, right?

But there’s been a quiet convergence around AGENTS.md, an open standard that Sourcegraph started and that OpenAI, Google, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Augment all now support. One vendor-neutral markdown file at your project root, read automatically.

Claude Code is the notable holdout — it doesn’t read AGENTS.md natively. (Anthropic’s own tool doesn’t support the open standard. Make of that what you will.) But Augment reads both AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md hierarchically, and Cursor reads AGENTS.md directly. So the workaround is simple — keep AGENTS.md as your single source of truth and add a one-line CLAUDE.md:

# CLAUDE.md
See @AGENTS.md

Now all three tools read the same file. Your build commands, coding standards, architectural notes, and “don’t touch the .pbxproj” warnings live in one place.

What Each Tool Reads

The takeaway isn’t the compatibility matrix — it’s that AGENTS.md plus tool-specific files gives you roughly 80% configuration reuse across all three. Augment reading CLAUDE.md is a nice touch if you’re already deep in a Claude Code workflow.

Hierarchical Rules: Where the Nuance Lives

All three support directory-scoped rules, which matters in monorepos. Claude Code discovers CLAUDE.md files by walking the directory tree. Augment does the same for both AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md. Cursor uses .cursor/rules/*.mdc with glob-based pattern matching.

Cursor’s approach is the most granular — you can attach a rule only when working with *.swift files, or only under Sources/Networking/. Claude Code and Augment scope by directory. For iOS projects, directory-based scoping works fine since the project structure naturally segments concerns. Polyglot monorepos might prefer Cursor’s glob model.

Where Each Tool Wins (and Loses)

Claude Code: The Architect

This is the tool I reach for when the task is “restructure how this entire module handles state” or “add offline sync across these twelve files.” Claude Code thinks before it acts — it generates a plan, shows you what it intends to do, then executes methodically. Opus 4.5 is exceptionally good at understanding SwiftUI’s declarative patterns and the subtle gotchas around view identity and the Observation framework. The hook system is the real differentiator — pre-commit guards, auto-formatting, convention reminders — turning it from an assistant into a constrained agent with deterministic guardrails.

The tradeoff? No tab completion. Zero. It lives in the terminal with no concept of inline suggestions. It’s also overkill for small edits — too much ceremony when you just need to rename a variable.

Cursor: The Daily Driver

Everything that involves actually typing code. Cursor’s Tab model is in a class of its own — a custom autocomplete model that predicts your next edit with eerie accuracy, not just the current line but multi-line completions that anticipate where you’re headed. Cmd+K is the fastest way to make targeted edits across any of these tools. No contest. Model flexibility is a bonus — swap between Opus, Sonnet, GPT-5.2, Gemini 3 Pro per task.

The tradeoff? It doesn’t index your entire repository the way Augment does. In large workspaces with multiple SPM packages and shared infrastructure, the agent sometimes misses cross-module dependencies or suggests patterns that conflict with code it hasn’t seen.

Augment Code: The Memory

Understanding your entire codebase is Augment’s genuine moat. Their Context Engine semantically indexes everything — code, dependencies, architecture, commit history (up to 10,000 commits). Ask “where do we handle authentication?” and it returns the right files, not keyword matches. The killer feature for a multi-tool workflow is the Context Engine MCP server — plug it into Claude Code or Cursor and their benchmarks show 70%+ improvement in agent output quality. Same model, same tasks, dramatically better results just from better context.

The tradeoff? The inline editing experience doesn’t match Cursor’s Tab model, and diff visualization in the CLI is rough enough that you’re sometimes accepting changes on faith.

Side by Side

The Hybrid Workflow: Putting It All Together

So what does it look like to actually use all three without losing your mind?

The Setup

AGENTS.md at the project root has everything tool-agnostic: project structure, build commands, coding conventions, and the sacred “never directly edit .pbxproj files” rule. CLAUDE.md imports it with See @AGENTS.md and adds Claude-specific stuff for hooks and skills.

.cursor/rules/ gets glob-scoped rules for Swift-specific patterns. .augment/rules/ has guidelines that leverage Augment’s context engine.

The critical piece: Augment’s Context Engine MCP configured in Claude Code so Claude gets full-repo understanding during terminal sessions.

claude mcp add-json auggie-mcp --scope user \
  '{"type":"stdio","command":"auggie","args":["--mcp","--mcp-auto-workspace"]}'

The Daily Routine

Cursor is open all day. It’s my editor. Tab completions flow while I type. Quick inline changes — add a modifier, refactor a closure, generate a test stub — Cmd+K handles it without breaking flow.

Claude Code runs in a terminal pane (usually inside Cursor’s integrated terminal, which is ironic but practical). When a task requires actual thinking — multi-file refactors, subtle state management bugs, planning a new feature across several modules — I switch to Claude. Hooks ensure it can’t corrupt my Xcode project. The planning step means I review the approach before files are touched.

Augment’s Context Engine MCP runs in the background, feeding Claude better context. When Claude needs to understand “how does our networking layer handle token refresh,” Augment’s retrieval gives it precise, relevant code instead of forcing a grep through the whole project.

Augment’s code review runs on PRs via GitHub Actions, catching cross-module issues that unit tests miss.

When to Reach for What

The Honest Cost

Running all three isn’t free. Subscriptions for these tools can add up fast, and the cognitive cost is real too — choosing the right tool for each task, maintaining config across three systems, and keeping up as each one ships updates at a pace that borders on aggressive.

If I had to drop one, it’d be Augment’s IDE extension — but I’d keep the Context Engine MCP. That’s the trick: you’re not really running three tools. You’re running two tools and a context layer that makes both of them dramatically better.

The tools are converging. Cursor is getting better agents. Claude Code might eventually ship tab completion. Augment keeps opening up its Context Engine. This article has a shelf life. But right now, this is the setup that gets the most done.

Further Reading

• AGENTS.md specification — The open standard for cross-tool agent instructions
• Claude Code documentation — Hooks, skills, subagents, and the full configuration hierarchy
• Cursor Rules documentation — Project rules, glob patterns, and the .mdc format
• Augment Code Context Engine MCP — Setup guide for plugging Augment into Claude Code and Cursor
• Keeping agent memory in sync across tools — Practical approaches to single-source-of-truth configuration