I contributed tab groups to VS Code (not reviewed/merged yet) and my original intention was to add it to Cursor. Can you adopt it somehow? If not, how can I contribute it to the Cursor codebase?
Hi Mostafa ā thank you for the thoughtful write-up and for building this with Cursor in mind. One nuance: Cursor has two tab surfaces today ā the classic VS Code-style editor tabs, and the Agents Viewās editor-panel tab UI, which is implemented separately. A change like yours would flow into classic IDE view through our upstream VS Code merges, but Agents View uses a different tab model and would need separate design work even if your PR merges.
On contributing directly: the core Cursor codebase isnāt open to external PRs the way VS Code is, so the forum is the right place to post - thank you! Weāre also investing heavily in tab and navigation UX on the agent view side. Please bump this thread if your VS Code PR gets merged ā itād be a good nudge for us. Thanks again.
Interestingly, I used Cursor with Claude Opus 4.6 to implement the VS Code tab grouping work, so it feels very much built with Cursor in mind. Iāll bump this thread when the VS Code PR is merged. Iād love to see tab grouping eventually supported in both classic editor tabs and Agents View tabs, and Iād be happy to contribute however I can, if there is a path for that.
Since you mentioned Cursor is investing heavily in tab and navigation UX on the agent side, I also wanted to share a few related UI/UX notes. I use Cursor heavily every day, often for many hours, and these are some of the small but recurring friction points I run into:
Opening old chats replaces the active tab
This is probably the most annoying one for me. When I open an old chat, I usually do not want it to replace my current tab. My workaround is to first open a new tab, then click the old chat. Interestingly, that opens the old chat next to the new tab. But if I click an old chat while another tab is active, the active tab gets replaced.
Agents Window feels behind regular chat tabs
When I open an Agents Window, I expect it to show the latest state and changes from the chat, but that does not always seem to happen. This might be something specific to my workflow, but the behavior feels inconsistent compared with normal chat tabs.
Full-text search across previous chats and plans
I wish I could do full-text search across previous chats and plans. Today, it seems to mostly search titles. I often end up asking an agent to sift through old chats/plans to find what I am looking for. A richer search experience for chats and plans would be very useful.
Roadmaps for managing many plans
I work on many projects at the same time. For a single project, I can easily end up with tens, or even hundreds, of plans. To keep track of them, I create a separate āroadmapā markdown file that links to the relevant plans and organizes them in a structure that makes sense for the project.
The problem is that because it is just a markdown file, jumping from it to a plan does not always render the target as a proper plan in classic tabs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.
I think there may be room for a first-class roadmap feature, either as part of the agent workflow or as a higher-level companion to plans. Plans are great for focused, well-defined pieces of work. A roadmap is more like the higher-level coordination layer across many plans. Iād be happy to share the structure I currently use for my roadmap docs.
Large plans do not render TODO statuses properly
When plans have more than a certain number of TODOs, say around 50, their statuses no longer seem to render properly in the plan/markdown viewer.
Links sometimes do not render properly
Links are sometimes not rendered correctly in the markdown viewer.
Plan TODOs are not updated when an agent starts work manually
This one is interesting: if I ask an agent to start working on a plan instead of clicking the āBuildā button at the top, the planās TODOs are not automatically updated as the work progresses.
Reusable development workflow attached to plans
I have a specific development workflow that I attach to every plan, but agents do not always follow it unless I nudge them. For example, I ask the agent to create a branch and commit each phase with meaningful commits, but it often skips that unless reminded. I tried putting it in .cursor/ directory, but it didnāt help either.
Overall, I really like the direction of plans and agent tabs. The main thing Iād love to see is stronger navigation, search, and project-level organization around chats, plans, and agent workspaces.
Please let me know if I should have posted these elsewhere.