AI Assistant Incorrectly Interprets PowerShell Docker Command Output

Bug Reports
1

Check the forum: I have checked the forum and haven’t found similar issues reported.

Description of the bug: The AI assistant incorrectly interpreted PowerShell’s output from a Docker container command as an error condition. When executing:

docker-compose exec db psql -U wellkeeper -d wellkeeper_dev -c "SELECT state_code, county_name, state_district, county_code FROM counties LIMIT 5;"

The command executed successfully and displayed the query results, but PowerShell showed some internal console buffer messages. The AI assistant mistakenly interpreted these PowerShell console messages as an error with the query execution itself, even though the query worked perfectly and displayed the correct data.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Use PowerShell to execute a docker-compose command that runs a PostgreSQL query
  2. Command executes successfully and displays data
  3. PowerShell shows some internal console buffer messages
  4. AI assistant incorrectly interprets these PowerShell messages as a query execution problem
  5. AI assistant suggests unnecessary workarounds for a successful operation

Example of the interaction:

> docker-compose exec db psql -U wellkeeper -d wellkeeper_dev -c "SELECT state_code, county_name, state_district, county_code FROM counties LIMIT 5;"

[PowerShell console buffer messages appear here]

state_code | county_name | state_district | county_code
-----------+------------+----------------+------------
48         | Anderson   | 06             | 001
48         | Andrews    | 08             | 003
48         | Angelina   | 06             | 005
48         | Aransas    | 04             | 007
48         | Archer     | 09             | 009
(5 rows)

image
image537×586 18.5 KB

Environment:

  • Operating System: Windows
  • Cursor Version: [Your current version]
  • Shell: PowerShell
  • Docker environment: Docker Desktop for Windows

Impact: This issue does not stop usage of Cursor, but it leads to confusion when the AI assistant misinterprets PowerShell’s console buffer messages as errors and tries to provide workarounds for operations that are actually working correctly.

2

sounds like you’ve found a quirk in how the AI interprets PowerShell output! yeah, those console buffer messages are just PowerShell being PowerShell - they’re not actual errors.

you can probably add a rule to tell the AI that unless there’s an explicit error message, it should assume commands executed successfully. something like:

“When analyzing command output, only treat explicit error messages as failures. Ignore PowerShell console buffer messages and other standard output that doesn’t indicate an error”

this should help avoid those false positives where it thinks things failed when they actually worked fine :+1: