Clew

How to set up user onboarding in an app built with Cursor without a developer

A complete first-session flow in an app built with Cursor — welcome, guided first action, getting-started list — built from three Clew items that follow the user through the app instead of one long tour on page load.

Time
● 40 minutes
Price
Tours free · rest 14-day trial
Who does it
You and Cursor Agent

Example: user onboarding in an app built with Cursor

A CRM maintained in Cursor. Sales reps (role = sales_rep) get a welcome modal on /deals, a pipeline tour on /deals/pipeline and a checklist on the second visit; managers skip it.

The product tour part is free on the Free plan (up to 3 published). The Modal, Checklist and audience rules are part of Pro: every new account gets a 14-day trial with everything included, no card. When the trial ends nothing is deleted and published items keep showing.

How to set up user onboarding in an app built with Cursor, step by step

  1. Step 01

    Copy your Clew snippet

    Create a free account (or sign in), add your site and open Admin → Overview. Click the line in the “No signal from the widget yet.” card to copy it — it carries your real site key instead of the placeholder.

    <!-- Clew: replace PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY with the site key from Admin > Overview -->
    <script src="https://tryclew.io/widget/PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY.js" async></script>
    Clew admin Overview with the embed line and a masked site key (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 1 · schematic illustration
  2. Step 02

    Open the repository in Cursor, Agent mode

    Open the project folder in Cursor and the chat in Agent mode, so it can edit files itself.

    Code editor with the AI agent chat panel open (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 2 · schematic illustration
  3. Step 03

    Send the prompt with your key

    Replace PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY with your key and send it. Cursor reads the repository and picks the right root file from the list in the prompt.

    Add the Clew onboarding widget to this app.
    
    Insert this exact tag once so it loads on every page, including after client-side route changes:
    <script src="https://tryclew.io/widget/PASTE_YOUR_SITE_KEY.js" async></script>
    
    Find the root HTML file or root layout of this project (index.html for Vite, app/layout.tsx with next/script for Next.js App Router, nuxt.config.ts app.head.script for Nuxt, src/app.html for SvelteKit) and add the tag there.
    
    After sign-in, call Clew.identify() with non-personal properties as strings that tell a new user from an existing one — for example { signup_source: "web", onboarded: "false", role: "owner" } — and update onboarded to "true" when the user completes the key action. If the widget may not have loaded yet, first define the queue stub: window.TutorKit = window.TutorKit || { q: [], identify: function (p) { this.q.push(["identify", p]); } }; then call window.TutorKit.identify(...). Also add data-tour attributes to the main navigation and the primary create button. Never pass names or emails.
    
    Rules:
    - Use the script URL exactly as given. Do not download it, bundle it or install an npm package.
    - If the project sets a Content-Security-Policy, allow https://tryclew.io in script-src and connect-src.
    - Change nothing else and show me the diff.
    AI chat with the Clew prompt in the message box (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 3 · schematic illustration
  4. Step 04

    Accept the diff, commit and deploy

    Review the diff — the tag in one root file plus the prompt’s small additions — then accept, commit and push. Your hosting deploys as usual.

    Code diff with one script line added to the root file (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 4 · schematic illustration
  5. Step 05

    Create the three onboarding items

    In Clew create three items in Flows: a Modal window with one welcome sentence and a link to the key screen; a Step-by-step tooltips tour of 3–4 steps on that screen, built with Edit on your site and Pick element; and a Onboarding checklist with the remaining setup tasks.

    A welcome popup, a tour tooltip and a checklist panel shown as three stages of user onboarding (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 5 · schematic illustration
  6. Step 06

    Choose where, when and for whom it shows

    In the same editor, set Where to show (page URL), When to show, Audience targeting and Frequency. These are the settings of the example above:

    SettingValue
    Welcome popup
    FormatModal window
    Where to show (page URL)Exact path /deals
    When to showRight on page load
    Audience targetingProperty role equals sales_rep
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Product tour
    FormatStep-by-step tooltips
    Where to show (page URL)Section by prefix /deals/pipeline
    When to showRight on page load
    Audience targetingNo rules — everyone who opens the page
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Checklist
    FormatOnboarding checklist
    Where to show (page URL)Section by prefix /deals
    When to showOn the Nth visit: 2
    Audience targetingNo rules — everyone who opens the page
    FrequencyOnce per visitor
    Clew tour editor with the format, page URL rule, trigger and audience rule fields (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 6 · schematic illustration
  7. Step 07

    Publish and check it on the live site

    Set Status to Published and save. Open the page in a private window — Clew remembers who has already seen a “once” item, so your usual browser may skip it. Views, completions and drop-offs appear in the tour stats.

    Clew admin Overview with the green “Widget is live” card (user onboarding in an app built with Cursor)
    Step 7 · schematic illustration

Pitfalls: user onboarding in an app built with Cursor

Review before accepting

Agents sometimes “improve” nearby code. Reject changes outside the files the prompt mentions; the user onboarding needs nothing else.

Local dev isn’t production

The widget works on localhost too, which is great for testing, but visitors’ stats and the “Widget is live” signal come from the deployed app.

The welcome popup must not fire for existing users

“Once per visitor” is per browser: an old customer on a new laptop is a new visitor. If your app knows the user, add a rule on a property like onboarded so long-time users skip the welcome.

Don’t start everything on one page

If the popup, the tour and the checklist all match the same URL, only one starts and the others wait. Give each item its own page or trigger, as in the table above.

Questions and answers

Can managers get their own onboarding?

Yes. Duplicate the items with a rule for role = manager and different pages.

Which Cursor model should I use?

Any model in Agent mode handles this; the task is small and the prompt names the files.

Which parts are free?

Tours are free on the Free plan. The welcome popup, the checklist and audience rules are in Pro; the 14-day trial includes them all, no card.

How long does it take?

About forty minutes for a first version: ten for the popup, twenty for the tour, ten for the checklist. Then improve by the funnel.

One line on your site — then tours, tooltips and checklists without releases.

Get your site key — freeHow Clew worksFree plan forever, no credit card

Product tours, popups and onboarding in the age of AI

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