Agent chat titles overwrite mid-conversation; history search cannot find the original thread

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Long-running Agent chats are retitled from later prompts in the same thread. Built-in Agents/Chat history search matches titles only, not message content. After the title changes, searching for the original project name returns no results even though the transcript still exists locally.

Example: a multi-week Agent chat for an internal project was later used for a follow-up about a narrower desktop/display symptom. The title card changed to that later topic. Searching history for the original project name no longer found the thread.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create an Agent chat for a multi-day project and use it across several sessions.
  2. Confirm the sidebar title reflects the original project (auto-name or manual rename).
  3. Later, send a follow-up in the same chat about a narrower, unrelated symptom.
  4. Watch the Agents/Chat title card change to the latest prompt topic.
  5. Open Agents/Chat history search and search for the original project name.
  6. The original thread does not appear.

This is reproducible on long-lived Agent chats. It is not limited to the first message.

Expected Behavior

  1. After a chat has a title (auto-generated or user-renamed), later prompts in the same thread should not overwrite that title.
  2. A manual rename should stay until the user changes it again.
  3. History search should match transcript content, or at least keep a stable project title so title-only search still finds the thread.
  4. There should be a setting to disable auto-rename and agent rename_chat.

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.10.17 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.125.0
Commit: c89f45b831621cdc5e951694db44fecd8fab1150
Date: 2026-07-05T06:39:45.228Z
Build Type: Stable
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Issue is UI/title/search behavior across models. Observed in Agent chats including Auto.

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

N/A for a single failed request. This is a persistent Agents UI/title + history-search issue, not one hung agent turn. I can add a Request ID from Chat … > Copy Request ID if the team needs one from a chat that was just retitled.

Additional Information

Searched first. Related existing reports:

Also related by title only (not linking, new-user 2-link limit): Cursor 2.6.19 overwrites manually assigned chat titles; Setting to turn off agent renaming chat.

Staff asked for version + OS on the mid-conversation retitle case. Providing those here on 26 Aug 2026 because the issue is still present and title-only search makes retitled chats unfindable.

No console errors observed. Help > Toggle Developer Tools was not needed to reproduce the title change or the failed history search.

Impact: users with many long-running Agent chats cannot find project threads by the original name. That forces hunting through local chat history or starting new chats, which wastes time and credits.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

6

Hey @Rob_McLain,

You’re on 3.10.17 (early-July build). We’ve since shipped changes that keep manually set titles from being replaced by auto-naming, so updating to the latest should clear up most of the overwrites. The one thing an update won’t cover is the agent renaming a chat on its own mid-conversation, and there’s no setting to turn that off yet. It’s a request we’re tracking. add your voice here: Setting to turn off agent renaming chat

Search: you’re right that it matches the title (plus a short preview), not the full transcript. Full-text search is on our radar (no ETA). In the meantime, the Find with agent option in the Agents panel search will search across your past chats’ contents to relocate a thread you can’t find by name.

If a chat still gets retitled mid-conversation after you update, grab a Request ID from it (chat menu → Copy Request ID) and drop it here so we can pin down what’s renaming it.