Agent shells resolve node to Cursor's bundled Node instead of the system/NVM Node already on PATH

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Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

On Windows, Cursor prepends its bundled node.exe to PATH in agent shells:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor\resources\app\resources\helpers\node.exe (v22.x)

When the agent runs project commands (node, npm, tests, scripts), it uses that bundled Node instead of the system-installed Node that is already on PATH.

This is not caused by NVM or any other version manager. The same issue would occur with a standard Node.js install from nodejs.org. I use NVM for Windows on my machine, but that is only how my Node happens to be installed — the bug is that Cursor’s bundled binary is prepended ahead of any system Node on PATH.

In a normal CMD/PowerShell window outside Cursor, where node shows the system install first (in my case C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe at v16.x). Inside Cursor’s agent shell, Cursor’s bundled binary wins and node -v returns v22.x.

Cursor’s bundled Node is fine for Cursor’s own internals. The problem is that user project commands inherit the wrong node because bundled Node takes priority over the system PATH.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Install Node on Windows by any normal means (direct installer, NVM, fnm, etc.).
  2. In a normal CMD window outside Cursor, confirm:
    where node
node -v
    System Node path is first; your installed version is returned.
  3. Open Cursor (user install at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor).
  4. Ask the agent to run:
    where node
node -v
  5. Observe the first node on PATH is:
    %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\cursor\resources\app\resources\helpers\node.exe
    and node -v returns Cursor’s bundled version (v22.x), not your system install.
  6. Run a project script or test that requires your installed Node version — it runs under the wrong Node.

Expected Behavior

  • Cursor’s bundled Node stays available for Cursor internals only.
  • Agent shell commands for user project code should resolve node via the system PATH, the same as a normal terminal.
  • where node in an agent shell should not prefer Cursor’s bundled binary over the system-installed Node.

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.6.21
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: e7a7e93f4d75f8272503ecf33cedbaae10114a10

Additional Information

  • I use NVM for Windows, but this is not an NVM bug — a plain Node install would hit the same PATH precedence issue.
  • My project requires Node v16.x; Cursor bundles v22.x.
  • Workaround: prepend system Node to PATH before project commands:
    set PATH=C:\Program Files\nodejs;%PATH%&& node -v
    Or use the full path to your system node.exe. Do not modify Cursor’s bundled node.exe.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

6

Thanks for the detailed report. We have a fix merged for this, but it has not reached the stable release channel yet. It is currently present in our nightly builds, and should become available to stable users once the relevant client release is promoted.

For now, the workaround is to explicitly put your system Node path first before running project commands, for example:

set PATH=C:\Program Files\nodejs;%PATH% && node -v