Box Plugin for Cursor

Search, read, and manage your Box content directly from Cursor — plus tap into Box AI for Q&A, summarization, and metadata extraction without leaving your editor.

This plugin connects Cursor to the Box MCP server, giving the AI agent access to your files, folders, hubs, and Box AI tools.

Prerequisites

You'll need a Box account with access to the Box MCP server. Your Box admin may need to enable the MCP server integration in the Admin Console.

Setup

1. Create a Box OAuth 2.0 app

Head to the Box Developer Console and create a new Custom App with OAuth 2.0 authentication.

Once created, grab your Client ID and Client Secret from the app's Configuration tab.

Under the OAuth 2.0 Redirect URI section of the Configuration tab, add the following redirect URI:

cursor://anysphere.cursor-mcp/oauth/callback

This allows Cursor to complete the OAuth authentication flow with Box.

2. Set your environment variables

The plugin reads credentials from two environment variables:

export BOX_CLIENT_ID="your_client_id"
export BOX_CLIENT_SECRET="your_client_secret"

Add these to your shell profile (.zshrc, .bashrc, etc.) or use whatever secrets management your team prefers.

Alternatively, you can skip environment variables and set your credentials directly in Cursor's MCP config file (~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "box": {
            "url": "https://mcp.box.com",
            "auth": {
                "CLIENT_ID": "your_client_id",
                "CLIENT_SECRET": "your_client_secret"
            }
        }
    }
}

If you go this route, be careful not to commit your credentials to version control.

3. Install the plugin

From the Marketplace (recommended): Install the Box plugin from the Cursor Marketplace.

Manual installation: If you prefer to test a local copy, you can install it by copying the plugin files into Cursor's local plugin directory and registering it:

1. Clone this repository and copy it into ~/.cursor/plugins/:

   git clone https://github.com/box-community/cursor-box-plugin.git
   cp -R cursor-box-plugin ~/.cursor/plugins/box

2. Register the plugin in ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json (create the file if it doesn't exist):

   {
     "plugins": {
       "box@local": [
         {
           "scope": "user",
           "installPath": "/Users/<you>/.cursor/plugins/box"
         }
       ]
     }
   }

3. Enable it in ~/.claude/settings.json:

   {
     "enabledPlugins": {
       "box@local": true
     }
   }

4. In Cursor Settings, make sure Include third-party Plugins, Skills, and other configs is enabled under Features.
5. Restart Cursor.

The MCP server connection, skill, and rules are all configured automatically once the plugin is installed.

What's included

File	What it does
mcp.json	Connects Cursor to the remote Box MCP server at https://mcp.box.com
skills/box/SKILL.md	Teaches the AI agent best practices for Box — search patterns, file write safety, metadata extraction workflows, and Box AI usage
rules/box.mdc	Enforces safety guardrails — confirmation prompts for destructive actions, hub modifications, and content display preferences

What you can do

Once installed, you can ask the Cursor agent to work with your Box content naturally. A few examples:

• Search — "Find all Q4 reports in the Finance folder"
• Read files — "Show me what's in the project brief"
• Upload — "Upload this CSV to the Reports folder in Box"
• Box AI Q&A — "Summarize the key risks in this contract"
• Metadata extraction — "Extract invoice numbers and totals from these PDFs"
• Hubs — "List my hubs" or "Add this file to the Product Launch hub"
• Collaboration — "Show me the comments on this file" or "What tasks are assigned to me?"
• Doc Gen — "Generate an NDA from the template using this data"

The agent has access to 30+ Box MCP tools covering file operations, folder management, search, collaboration, hubs, Box AI, and document generation. See the full tool list for details.

Safety guardrails

The plugin comes with built-in guardrails so the agent doesn't do anything surprising:

• Destructive actions (overwrite, delete, bulk changes) prompt you for confirmation the first time, then let you choose whether to keep confirming or auto-approve for the session.
• Hub creation and modifications always ask before proceeding, since hubs can be visible across your organization.
• AI operations stay in Box — when you need Q&A, summarization, or extraction, the agent uses Box AI rather than downloading files and processing them externally.
• Content display — the first time file content would be shown in chat, the agent asks whether you prefer a link to Box or the content pasted directly, then remembers your choice.

Links

• Box MCP Server docs
• Box OAuth 2.0 setup
• Box Developer Console
• Box Developer Community

License

MIT