Alignment Failure Modes

The three primary ways AI assistance in Cursor fails to produce the intended outcome: specification failure (did what you said, not what you meant), context failure (inconsistent with codebase), and scope creep (modified more than asked).

Syntax

cursor

Specification failure → Write precise, testable requests
Context failure → Keep .cursorrules current, use @Codebase
Scope creep → Review diffs; reject out-of-scope changes

Example

cursor

// Specification failure example:
// Vague: "Make this faster"
// AI adds aggressive caching, introducing stale data bugs
//
// Precise: "Reduce /api/products response time from 400ms
// to under 100ms without caching user-specific data"

// Scope creep detection:
// Review Composer diff for files you didn't reference
// Reject "improvements" to code outside stated scope
// AI making things "better" without being asked is a risk