We need to talk about the mess. With the rise of agentic AI, we are shipping more code than ever, but much of it is “spaghetti with a side of hallucinations.” If you aren’t careful, your codebase becomes a minefield. Code refactoring in Cursor isn’t just a luxury anymore; it is a survival skill for maintaining complex WordPress environments without losing your mind.
I’ve been writing PHP for 14 years. I remember when refactoring meant a weekend of manual find-and-replace and crossing my fingers that I didn’t break a global transient. Today, I use Cursor to do in 20 minutes what used to take four hours. But here is the catch: if you don’t have a strategy, the AI will simply move the bugs from one file to another. Specifically, you need a framework that prioritizes stability over speed.
Why Traditional Code Hygiene Still Matters
Refactoring is the process of cleaning up code without changing its external behavior. We do this to adhere to the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle and improve separation of concerns. Furthermore, as I discussed in my post on technical debt in AI development, messy code actually makes your AI agents stupider. If the context window is full of junk, the AI’s suggestions will be junk too.
Step 1: Discovering the Refactor Trigger
You should consider code refactoring in Cursor the moment you notice two things: anti-patterns (like 1,000-line functions) and a slowdown in iteration speed. If your coding agent starts struggling to understand a file it wrote yesterday, that is a massive red flag. However, unlike the manual days, the “cost” of a refactor has plummeted. You can afford to be liberal with cleanup early on.
Step 2: Planning with Agentic Conversations
Don’t just jump in and ask Cursor to “fix this file.” That is a recipe for a race condition in your logic. Instead, initiate a conversation. I prefer using “Plan Mode” or even discussing architectural trade-offs with Gemini in a separate tab before touching the editor.
I recommend spending 10 minutes building a plan.md. This file acts as the source of truth. You should define the target file structure, the Singleton patterns you want to use, and how you’ll handle legacy hooks. According to the official Cursor features documentation, referencing the codebase with @codebase during this planning phase is critical for high-accuracy refactors.
Step 3: Executing with Lenient Permissions
When it’s time to execute, I switch to Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Recent coding model benchmarks consistently rank Claude as the superior model for logical reasoning and refactoring tasks. Specifically, I give the agent lenient permissions for read/write commands but insist on it creating test scripts for verification.
For example, if I’m refactoring a messy procedural plugin into a class-based structure, I show the agent the “Before” state and let it propose the boilerplate:
<?php
/**
* Refactoring a messy functions.php snippet into a PSR-4 compliant class.
* The bbioon_ prefix ensures we don't collide with core or other plugins.
*/
namespace Bbioon\Core;
if ( ! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) exit;
class SettingsManager {
private static $instance = null;
public static function get_instance() {
if ( null === self::$instance ) {
self::$instance = new self();
}
return self::$instance;
}
private function __construct() {
add_action( 'admin_init', [ $this, 'bbioon_register_settings' ] );
}
public function bbioon_register_settings() {
// Logic moved from a monolithic procedural file
register_setting( 'bbioon_options_group', 'bbioon_api_key' );
}
}
SettingsManager::get_instance();Step 4: Post-Refactor Verification
This is where most devs fail. After the AI finishes, you must compare the output. I ask Cursor to “Compare the input/output of the new class against the original procedural functions.” This step has saved me from losing data in wp_options more times than I can count. Furthermore, if you are working on high-stakes projects, consider running coding agents in parallel to have one model review the other’s work.
Always refer back to the WordPress PHP Coding Standards to ensure the AI hasn’t introduced non-compliant naming conventions or insecure SQL queries during the shuffle.
Look, if this Code Refactoring in Cursor stuff is eating up your dev hours, let me handle it. I’ve been wrestling with WordPress since the 4.x days.
The Senior Takeaway
Refactoring is no longer about typing; it is about orchestration. Use the AI to move the bricks, but you must remain the architect. Use Plan Mode to define the vision, Claude for the heavy lifting, and always verify against your main branch. Stop shipping spaghetti—your future self (and your client’s server) will thank you.
