diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index bc44d87a4..ebdb720fd 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -34,46 +34,27 @@ For any security-related concerns & bug bounties, please email us at [security@s
 
 ## Vibecoding setup
 
-NOTE: Every line of code should be reviewed by a human BEFORE you submit a PR. DO NOT waste our time by creating an AI-generated PR; we won't fall for that.
+NOTE: Every line of code should be reviewed by a human BEFORE you submit a PR. DO NOT waste our time by creating and submitting an AI-generated PR.
 
-For vibecoding, it can help to have multiple parallel copies of the codebase open in different windows. For this, you can set the environment variable `NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX` to a different value (default 81). You may want to do this in your VSCode settings:
+For vibecoding, it can help to have multiple parallel copies of the codebase open in different windows. For this, you can set the environment variable `NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX` to a different value (default 81). To do this consistently across all coding agents (Claude Code/Cursor Agent/Codex),we recommend you use `direnv` with a `.envrc` file:
 
-```json
-{
-  "terminal.integrated.env.osx": {
-    "NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX": "181"
-  },
-  "terminal.integrated.env.linux": {
-    "NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX": "181"
-  },
-  "terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
-    "NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX": "181"
-  },
-  "claude-code.environmentVariables": [
-    "NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX=181"
-  ]
-}
-```
+1. Install `direnv` if you haven't already. On Mac, the easiest way is to install it with Homebrew: `brew install direnv`.
+2. Update ALL your shell configs to append the following lines. On most Mac setups, this is `~/.bash_profile`, `~/.bashrc`, `~/.zprofile`, `~/.zshrc`, and `~/.zshenv`.
+  ```sh
+  # ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.zprofile, ~/.zshrc, ~/.zshenv, etc.
+  # note that different coding agents use a different shell in a different mode (login, non-login, interactive, non-interactive, etc.); from my experimentation, as of 2025-10-17 on a Mac, Cursor uses non-interactive zsh (requiring ~/.zshenv), whereas Codex uses a non-interactive login bash (requiring ~/.bash_profile). It's easiest to just add these lines of code to all of your shell configs.
+  eval "$(direnv hook <bash|zsh>)"
+  eval "$(direnv export <bash|zsh>)"
+  ```
+3. Now, create a `.envrc` file in the root of Stack Auth's codebase with the following content:
+  ```sh
+  # .envrc
+  # make sure to install direnv and add it to your shell rc file (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc)
+  export NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX=181
 
-This will work for Claude Code and everything that runs inside the integrated terminal, but it does not work with Cursor Agent or the Codex VSCode extension. To make it work for these, the recommendation is that instead you use `direnv` with a `.envrc` file:
-
-```sh
-# .envrc
-# make sure to install direnv and add it to your shell rc file (e.g. ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc)
-export NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX=181
-
-# with this many processes running, it can be useful to add a custom title to all Node.js processes
-# export NODE_OPTIONS="--require=<path-to-the-workspace-folder>/scripts/set-process-title.js $NODE_OPTIONS"
-```
-
-And make sure that `direnv` works in non-interactive login shells, make sure you added it to your ~/.bash_profile as well as your ~/.bashrc:
-
-```sh
-# ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.zprofile, ~/.zshrc, ~/.zshenv, etc.
-# note that different coding agents use a different shell in a different mode (login, non-login, interactive, non-interactive, etc.); from my experimentation, as of 2025-10-17 on a Mac, Cursor uses non-interactive zsh (requiring ~/.zshenv), whereas Codex uses a non-interactive login bash (requiring ~/.bash_profile). It's easiest to just add these lines of code to all of your shell configs.
-eval "$(direnv hook <bash|zsh>)"
-eval "$(direnv export <bash|zsh>)"
-```
+  # with this many processes running, it can be useful to add a custom title to all Node.js processes
+  # export NODE_OPTIONS="--require=<path-to-the-workspace-folder>/scripts/set-process-title.js $NODE_OPTIONS"
+  ```
 
 When you do this, it is recommended that you give all workspaces a port prefix other than 81, to prevent accidental conflicts when you forgot to make a feature support the $NEXT_PUBLIC_STACK_PORT_PREFIX environment variable. (for example: first workspace at 181, second workspace at 182, etc.)