Cursor AI Tutorial for Beginners: Build App with AI (2026) transcript

If you've ever wanted to build a real app, but you always thought that you needed years of coding experience, well, what I'm about to show you is going to completely change all of that. This is me building a fully functional document scanner app in 30 minutes using nothing but AI and simple prompts, and all without writing a single line of code. Most people think that app development is like this massive, complicated process that takes months to learn, but here's what they do not realize.

AI tools, like Cursor, have completely flipped that script. And while everyone else is still stuck thinking that they need a master programming languages, I'm going to show you how to recreate an app that's currently making millions. In this screenshot, you can see proof that the original app that we are copying made over $4 million just last month. iScanner is a PDF document scanner that lets users scan, edit, and organize documents directly from their phone.

It's one of the top productivity apps on the App Store. And today, we're going to rebuild it from scratch using only AI. But here's the thing, most tutorials either assume you already know how to code, I won't, or they show you some basic Hello World example that is completely useless in the real world. And today, [music] we're doing none of those things. We're going to reverse engineer a proven multi-million-dollar app.

So, let's dive in. And just a quick note here, later in the video, I will tell you more about how to convert the app that we're going to build and then publish it to the App Store, [music] too. And if you can't wait, that's totally cool. You can just check out the link in the description below for more information. If you've ever opened up a new tool and immediately felt like you were already behind, well, this part is for you.

Cursor is powerful, but if it's your first time seeing it, it can feel like a lot at once. So, before we build anything or touch the app itself, I do want to take a moment to walk you through Cursor from scratch and make sure it feels familiar and not too overwhelming. So, let's start by downloading Cursor. Go to cursor.com/download. And once you're on that page, you're going to see versions available for different operating systems.

All you got to do is just pick the one that matches your OS and start the download. After it finishes, install Cursor and open it up like any other app. I already have Cursor installed on my machine, so I won't be able to show you the whole installation screens here, but once you do have it open, you'll be in the exact same spot and ready to follow along. Once Cursor opens, the first thing you'll see is the home screen with a few different options.

And you'll notice buttons for opening a project, cloning a repository, or connection through SSH. For this tutorial, we're keeping things simple, so we'll create a project locally. The other options are more useful when you're working with cloud-based repos or existing online projects, which we don't need here. So, go ahead and click open project, then navigate to wherever you want this project to live on your computer.

Create a new folder, give it a name, and open it. As soon as you do that, Cursor will load the project and drop you into the main workspace. [music] This is the view we're going to be working with in for the rest of the build, so from here we can start exploring how everything is laid out. After the project loads, Cursor will drop you straight into its main layout. Now, at first glance, it might look like a lot, but everything is split into a few clear areas that you'll get used to very quickly.

Over here on the left side is the explorer. This is where all of your project files live. You'll use this panel to open files, move between folders, and generally navigate around the project. In that same area, you'll also find tools for search, for source control, and for extensions. In the center of the screen here is the editor. This is where your files actually open and where you'll be doing most of your work, reading code, making changes, and seeing updates all in real time.

While here on the right side is one of Cursor's most important features, the AI agent chat. This is where you'll talk to the AI, give it instructions, and have it help you build and modify the app. A lot of what we do in this course will happen right here. Inside the agent chat, you'll notice that there are a few different ways the AI can respond depending on what you want it to do. >> [music] >> At the top, there's a mode selector with options like agent, plan, debug, and ask.

Each mode changes how the AI approaches your prompt, but for most of what we are building in this course, the agent mode works best and is what we'll be using by default. Right next to that is the model selector. This lets you choose which AI model handles your prompts. I normally just stick with Opus, so that's the one I have selected here, but you can also experiment with others if you'd like. On the far right, there are a few extra tools that let you customize how you interact with the AI.

You can add additional context, let it browse the web, use images as references, or even use voice input. These tools become especially useful as projects get a lot more complex. All right, so now, are you ready to turn this Cursor app we're about to build into cold, hard cash? Well, you're about to learn how to build an app with Cursor. But here's what separates the builders from the money makers, publishing and monetizing that app.

Because while most people stop at, "Ooh, I built something cool," you are about to discover how to turn your Cursor creations into a real income stream. Inside my exclusive School community, you're going to get step-by-step walk-throughs of submitting and publishing your Cursor app to the App Store in minutes, not months. [music] My complete AI app profit system, the exact blueprint I used to build and monetize apps, and a lot more.

This isn't just about building apps, it's about building a business. So, if you are genuinely interested in making money online, please do check out the link in the description below and join my exclusive School community to secure your spot. Now, to get a good feel of how Cursor actually works, let's go ahead and start with something really simple, okay? We're going to ask it to create a basic web page that displays Hello World.

This is an easy way to see how the AI responds and how it sets up a project for us. Inside the agent chat, I'll give Cursor this prompt, "Please create a simple web page that shows Hello World. Build this in React and give me the command to run the local host." After sending the prompt, let's give Cursor a moment to do its thing. And depending on your computer, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two.

But once it's done, you can see that Cursor has generated the web page, and it's also provided the exact npm command needed to run it locally. And that means we don't have to guess how to start the project. The instructions are already there and ready to use. After Cursor provides the command, we just need to run it. So, I'm going to copy the command it gave us and then head over to the terminal. In the menu area here, we need to click terminal, then select run terminal.

And the terminal is where we execute commands and actually start our applications. Inside the terminal, I'll paste the command Cursor gave us and run it. After a few seconds, the process finishes and the local server starts up. At this point, we can open up our browser and see our Hello World page running successfully. And this confirms everything is set up correctly and that Cursor is doing exactly what we expect. So, there's another thing that I want to show you here, because one of the more impressive things that Cursor can do is actually use images as part of the prompt.

So, you don't need to just describe what you want in text. Instead, you can actually just show the AI what you're aiming for and then let it work from that. To try this out, let's build a new website inspired [music] by Spotify. So, first I'm going to grab a screenshot of Spotify's interface, and after that, we'll paste the image directly into the agent chat and give Cursor this prompt, "Please design the website similar to Spotify.

Please use the reference image." And after submitting that, we can open the result here in our browser and see a fully interactive website that does closely follow the layout and the style from the image that we provided. And this is a great example of how powerful image-based prompts can be. Being able to guide Cursor visually makes it much easier to get designs that match what we might have in mind. But before we move on, let's make sure everything we've done is saved.

A quick control S or command S is all it takes. You won't see anything change on screen when you do this, and that's expected. Cursor doesn't show a save confirmation, but your work is locked in. And that's a good place to stop for this guide, because at this point, you've seen how Cursor works, how to interact with the AI, and how to use its core features. From here, we're going to start using all of this to build the actual app.

Now, before we start building the actual app, there are two tools we need to have in place, Git and Node.js. The document scanner we're building uses React Native with Expo, which means everything runs on JavaScript and relies on these tools behind the scenes. Once they are installed, I promise you the rest of the setup will be a lot smoother. So, let's start with Git. Head over to git-scm.com/install/windows. And from there, just choose the version that matches your operating system and download it.

Once the download finishes, go through the installation steps and complete the setup. >> [music] >> You don't need to change any advanced options or anything, just follow the defaults and you'll be good to go. Next up is node.js. So, go to nodejs.org/en/download/current and download the installer for your operating system. After the download completes, install node.js on your laptop or your computer, and this gives us access to npm, which we are going to use constantly throughout the project to install dependencies and run commands.

Now, once both Git and node.js are installed, that means the system is ready for development. I already have both set up on my laptop, so the focus here is just simply showing where to download them. As long as you've completed these steps on your own setup, you are good to move forward and start building the app. Now that everything is set up, it's time to create the actual project. Now, this step is important because we want Cursor to generate the app using the exact framework combination that we're going to be working with, which in this case is React Native with Expo.

Being clear here helps avoid issues later on and keeps everything aligned with Expo's tooling. So, let's start by creating a new project folder, and then let's open it inside Cursor. Once the project is open, head over to the AI agent chat. Now, this is where we'll tell Cursor exactly what kind of app we want to build. So, I'm going to give Cursor this prompt. "Hey Cursor, please build a React Native plus Expo application that utilizes Expo's latest SDK 54.

Create a simple document scanner mobile app with two main sections, the dashboard and history. Build only the front-end design, not the actual functionality yet." After submitting that prompt, we need to give Cursor some time to generate the project. Now, this can take a few minutes depending on your system, but once it's done, you can see that the application structure is already in place. The app has a clean modern scanner-style layout with two main sections, dashboard and history.

There's a placeholder content throughout the app for now, which makes it easier to just help us visualize how everything will look once the real features are added. You can scroll through both sections and get a good feel for the layout and navigation. You can also see here that the design foundation is complete and we're ready to start adding real functionality on top of it. Now, here's a thing, the app looks good, but it doesn't actually do anything, not yet.

So, the first real feature we need is a way for users to bring documents into the app, and that means adding upload support and camera access, since scanning starts with getting an image in. So, back inside Cursor, we'll handle this through the AI agent chat again. For this build, I'm going to ask Cursor to create both the upload button and camera functionality, even though I'll mainly be testing the upload flow for the demo.

Now, here's the prompt I'm going to use. "Now, please create the upload button and camera functionality for the application. Build this in the dashboard." After sending the prompt, we'll give Cursor some time to generate the feature, and right after that, you can see the upload flow working inside our dashboard. So, I'm going to use a sample document that was generated earlier, and I'm also going to upload a screenshot of it into the app.

You can see here that the image is saved correctly, and it shows up exactly where it should, and this confirms that both the upload and the saving logic are working properly. With documents now making it into our app, we are ready to move on to the part that actually makes this a scanner, which is adding AI-powered text recognition. So, right now, the app can upload documents, but it doesn't actually understand what's inside them yet.

So, to turn images into usable text and structured documents, we need to bring in AI into the mix, and that's why we will be setting up access to OpenAI, starting with creating an API key that the app can use to perform text recognition and document analysis. I will start by heading over to platform.openai.com, and then here, we'll create a new project. Once the project is set up, go to the API key section, and from there, create a new secret key, and during this [music] process, you'll see options to control what the API key is allowed to access.

In production apps, it's always best practice [music] to keep permissions as limited as possible and only enable what you actually need. For this demo, though, we'll keep things simple and allow access to all services. Then, all you need to do is copy it and keep it somewhere safe. We'll need it in the next step when we integrate OpenAI into the app and then build the actual scanning functionality. So, now that we have the OpenAI API key ready, we can actually put it to use.

Because up until this point, the app has been able to upload and store documents, but that's only half the job. The real value comes from understanding what's inside those files, and this is where the scanning experience starts to be more practical. So, back inside Cursor, we'll integrate OpenAI and then build the full scanning logic. Along with basic text recognition, we do also want the system to be flexible enough to handle different languages and different document types.

The output shouldn't just be raw text, it should adapt based on what's being scanned. So, let's send this exact prompt [music] to Cursor. "Please build the actual text scanning functionality powered by OpenAI. Make this advanced as possible by allowing multiple language text recognition and have a custom output based on the scanned document. For example, if a [music] passport is scanned, it should not only get the text, but the output document should be formatted as a passport, and there are tags to indicate otherwise.

Make sure to allow the user to preview the document output before saving." Here's the OpenAI key. Insert your key there, and with that, Cursor is now analyzing our prompt, and there you go. We now have actual text scanning functionality powered by OpenAI. And here, I'm going to upload the same sample document that we used earlier. And after a short wait, the app returns a structured and accurate result. >> [music] >> The text here is correctly recognized, the formatting matches the document type, and the preview gives us a chance to review everything before we save it.

After saving the document, it immediately appears in our dashboard, and all I can say is our app isn't just for simply storing images anymore, because now it can actually understand documents, which is the core of what this project is all about. Once a document has been scanned and formatted, the next thing our users will want to do is make changes. No scan is ever perfect on the first pass, and sometimes documents do need adjustments, corrections, or added details.

And that's why our app needs a proper editor instead of just locking users into a read-only result. So, let's build an editor that opens up after a document is scanned and processed. The goal here is to give users the same kind of control that they would expect from dedicated document tools, where text can be edited, styled, and refined. So, here's the prompt I'm going to use to make all of that happen. "Now, please build an extensive editor for the application.

Whenever a document is scanned and auto-formatted, give the user the ability to edit the scanned document similar to dedicated document software, such as Word." Okay, so now that it's ready, I'm going to scan the same document again. And after the AI finishes analyzing it, an edit button now appears alongside the results, and clicking that opens the editor directly inside our app. And from here, I can adjust text alignment, [music] change font sizes, modify styles, and even add specific fields to the document.

As changes are made, the preview updates accordingly as well, which shows that everything behaves exactly as I want to. Now, we all know that editing a document is useful, but it doesn't mean much if you can't take that document out of the app. So, the final step here in our scanning flow is giving users a way to export their documents in formats that they can actually use and share. What we're going to do is that we're going to wire up exporting, so scanned documents don't stay trapped inside the app.

And the idea here is flexibility. Our users should be able to choose how they want their scanned documents packaged, depending on what they're doing with them next. So, here's the prompt I'm going to use for that. "Create the ability to export saved documents via a format of the user's choosing. Allow a wide range of document export options, such as PDF, JPEG, DOC, etc." After sending the prompt, Cursor takes care of generating the export logic in the background, setting everything up so that our documents can be downloaded in multiple formats.

I do want to test this out, so let's scan the same document again and save the result. After saving, the export option becomes available, and I can choose from multiple file formats. I'll select PDF, and the app generates the file correctly. And even without editing the document beforehand, all of the scanned content is present in the exported file. And this confirms the export system is working as intended, and that documents can now move seamlessly from scan to usable file.

Just a quick reminder, as we are almost done with building the app, you can join my school community to learn how to publish this to the app store and then turn your AI skills into real income. So, don't let this app just sit there, make it work for you and pay you. Link is in the description below. So, at this point, the app can scan, edit, and export documents, but there's one more practical feature it needs, privacy.

Documents often contain sensitive information, so users should have a way to lock specific files and then control who can access them. >> [music] >> Here's what we're going to do. We'll add a PIN protection system that works at the document level. This will allow users to lock individual documents directly from the history section instead of locking the entire app. And so to build this out, we do need a detailed prompt like this one.

Build a password protect {slash} PIN protection feature for the application. In the history section, allow the user to create a PIN for the documents they have selected. [music] Make sure to indicate the password protected documents as locked and it can only be opened with the proper password. So after submitting that prompt, Cursor generates the locking logic for us. >> [music] >> So to test it, I'll scan the same document again and save it.

And from the history section, let's long press the saved document and select the option to lock it. And the app prompts me to create a PIN, then asks for confirmation to make sure it's set correctly. After locking the documents, I'm going to try opening it using an incorrect PIN and the app correctly blocks access. So you can see here that after entering the correct PIN, the document does unlock and then opens up normally.

This feature adds an important layer of security and makes our app feel much more complete, especially for users handling personal or confidential documents. So at this point, our application is now packed with features thanks to the help of Cursor. But before we do wrap things up, I do want to walk you through a full pass in the app here, the same way a real user would. Basically, scanning a document, fixing a couple of things, locking it if needed, and then exporting it.

[music] So nothing fancy, just using the app the way you normally would. >> [music] >> So let's start by scanning the same document again and going through the full flow from scan to export. After the scanning finishes, let's try to rename the file to document one and open it inside the editor. Let's adjust the alignment as well, edit a few things here, and then save the document. All changes apply instantly and remain consistent throughout the app.

So next, I'm going to move over to the history section here. I'm going to select this document and lock it using a PIN. After locking it, let's try to unlock the document again and make another quick edit to confirm that editing and security work together smoothly. So for our final step, we'll scan the document one more time. We're going to save it and then export it as a PDF. The export options appear correctly and the file downloads without any issues.

The full PDF isn't opened here, but the export process itself works exactly as expected. And there you go. We now have a fully functional document scanner app. And that's everything that I wanted to cover for this Cursor beginner guide. You've got the basics down. You've built something real and you know how to use AI inside of your own workflow. Everything after this is just practice and iteration, so do feel free to take what you've learned here and then start shaping it into your own projects.

Thank you for watching and investing your time with me today. I'm going to see you at the next one.