AI Agent terminal starts in wrong shell ($ prompt) instead of PowerShell (PS>)

Bug Reports
1

Describe the Bug

I’m using Cursor on Windows.
When I open a terminal manually, it starts normally in PowerShell with the PS> prompt.
But when the AI Agent runs something, it opens a different terminal that looks completely wrong — it shows $ instead of PS> and says Active code page: 65001.

Because of that, it doesn’t behave like real PowerShell, and some normal commands don’t work the same way.
I just want the AI Agent to use the same PowerShell terminal that opens when I start it myself.
How can i fix it?

Steps to Reproduce

Open Cursor

Create a terminal manually → works fine (shows PS> prompt)

Ask the AI Agent to run a command

It opens a $ terminal with Active code page: 65001 instead of PowerShell

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.0.34 (system setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 45fd70f3fe72037444ba35c9e51ce86a1977ac10
Date: 2025-10-29T06:51:29.202Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

2

Hey Thanks for the report. This is a known issue with the new Agent terminal on Windows.

Fix: enable the Legacy Terminal Tool setting:

  • Open Cursor settings Ctrl+Shift+J
  • Go to the Agents tab → Inline Editing & Terminal
  • Enable “Legacy Terminal Tool”
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+P → “Terminal: Kill All Terminals”
  • Fully restart Cursor
  • Test your node scripts again

This will make the Agent respect your default terminal profile. After enabling it, the Agent should open PowerShell with the PS> prompt as expected.

Let me know if this fixes the issue.

3

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image671×664 18.2 KB

Hello, its didn`t help

When i open terminal manually its look like this

image
image674×377 8.37 KB

4

Thanks for confirming. Since the Legacy Terminal Tool isn’t helping for you (even though it fixed this for others), let’s gather a bit more info:

  1. Check settings.json: open Ctrl+Shift+P → “Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON)” and share lines that contain terminal.integrated (especially defaultProfile.windows and automationProfile.windows)

Example:

{
  "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "PowerShell",
  "terminal.integrated.automationProfile.windows": {
    "path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe"
  }
}

Or if you use PowerShell 7:

{
  "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "PowerShell",
  "terminal.integrated.automationProfile.windows": {
    "path": "C:\\Program Files\\PowerShell\\7\\pwsh.exe"
  }
}

  1. Current version: what Cursor version are you on now? (Help > About Cursor > Copy)

  2. When the Agent opens the wrong terminal, open Developer Console (Help > Toggle Developer Tools) and check for errors. Please share any messages related to terminal/shell.

This might be a regression or edge case that we should escalate if the standard fix isn’t working.

5

{

“window.commandCenter”: true,

“git.enableSmartCommit”: true,

“git.autofetch”: true,

“git.confirmSync”: false,

“git.ignoreRebaseWarning”: true,

“terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows”: “PowerShell”,

“cursor.terminal.usePreviewBox”: true,

“terminal.integrated.allowChords”: false,

“terminal.integrated.agent.enabled”: false,

“terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.enabled”: false

}

Version: 2.0.43 (system setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 8e4da76ad196925accaa169efcae28c45454cce0
Date: 2025-10-30T18:49:27.589Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100

image
image1181×696 49.3 KB

6

Can you help me?

7

can you help me, brother?

8

Thanks! I noticed your settings.json is missing the terminal.integrated.automationProfile.windows setting that Agent uses. Let’s add it.

Steps:

  • Add this to your settings:
"terminal.integrated.automationProfile.windows": {
    "path": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe"
}
  • Close all terminals: Ctrl+Shift+P → “Terminal: Kill All Terminals”
  • Fully restart Cursor
  • Test the Agent terminal again

Let me know if this helps.

9

image
image800×1068 35.4 KB

still same