How to Use Cursor Cloud Agents in Software Testing | The Cursor-Powered Tester

Need to close your laptop while the test investigation keeps going? In this Cursor cloud agents tutorial for testers, I explain what cloud agents are (agents in their own cloud virtual machines, formerly background agents), which plans include them, how they work on a separate branch, where to start one, environment setup, secrets, artifacts, remote desktop control, moving between local and cloud, sharing, safety, cost, and examples for manual, API, performance and automation testing. This is Episode 14 of The Cursor-Powered Tester, a Cursor AI for testing series on Automate With SDET. You'll learn: ✅ What Cursor cloud agents are ✅ Which plans include them ✅ Branch → push → pull request ✅ Where to start one (desktop, web, GitHub, Slack) ✅ Environment setup: agent-led, snapshot, Dockerfile ✅ Secrets and test data ✅ Artifacts and remote desktop control ✅ Safety and cost Chapters 0:00 Intro: close your laptop 1:09 Episode 13 recap 1:30 What a cloud agent is 2:07 Why testers care 2:41 What you need first 3:26 How it works 3:56 Where you can start one 4:31 Your first cloud agent 5:03 The environment matters most 5:37 Setting up the environment 6:15 Secrets and test data 6:53 Artifacts 7:21 Remote desktop control 7:52 Quick quiz 8:29 Local ⇄ cloud 8:55 Example: manual testing 9:25 Example: API testing 9:55 Example: performance testing 10:27 Example: automation testing 10:56 Sharing with your team 11:23 Safety 11:59 Troubleshooting 12:31 Costs 13:00 Best practices 13:26 Cheat sheet 14:00 Recap 14:24 Homework + next: the browser tool Links Cloud Agents (Cursor documentation): https://cursor.com/docs/cloud-agent Agents Window: https://cursor.com/docs/agent/agents-... Title note: planned title kept; the documentation uses 'Cloud Agents' (formerly Background Agents). Plans: Premium and higher, Teams, Enterprise or legacy paid; Free and Plus don't include them. Features, menus, plans and prices are as described at the time of recording (October 2026) and can change. Screens in this video are illustrations, not exact screenshots. Follow your company's policy before using AI tools on work data, and never paste real customer data into a prompt. Previous episode: Run Multiple Cursor Agents at Once (Ep 13) Next episode: Cursor Browser Tool for testers (Ep 15) Subscribe to The Cursor-Powered Tester on Automate With SDET. Instagram: @automatewithsdet #CursorAI #CloudAgents #CursorCloudAgents #BackgroundAgents #AIAgents #CursorAgent #CloudTesting #CursorAITutorial #CursorAIForTesting #CursorForTesters #TheCursorPoweredTester #AIinTesting #QATesting #SoftwareTesting #testautomationframework