AI Terminal over SSH fails with `dump_bash_state: command not found` and random "command not found" lines

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Whenever the AI tries to run any terminal command over an SSH workspace, the output is always a series of shell errors:

--: line 2: ---: command not found
--: line 3: A: command not found
--: line 4: If: command not found
--: line 5: Tue: command not found
--: line 6: --------------------------------: command not found
--: line 1: dump_bash_state: command not found

The command never runs.
This happens for every command and only on Remote SSH.

The normal integrated terminal works fine; only the AI/Agent-powered terminal is broken.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open Cursor
  2. Connect to any remote server using SSH Workspace
  3. Ask the AI to run a command (e.g., “run ls”)
  4. AI attempts to run it → the terminal immediately prints the errors above
  5. No command ever actually executes

This is 100% reproducible on Remote SSH.

Expected Behavior

AI Terminal should inject its shell state, start correctly, and execute commands normally inside an SSH workspace.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

SCR-20251120-nexh-2.png
SCR-20251120-nexh-2.png290×462 22.7 KB

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.0.77
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: ba90f2f88e4911312761abab9492c42442117cf0
Date: 2025-11-13T23:10:43.113Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

Additional Information

  • Normal terminal inside Cursor works perfectly
  • Only the AI terminal over SSH is broken
  • This completely blocks the AI’s ability to run any command on the remote machine

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

3

Hey, thanks for the report. It looks like the issue is related to how the AI terminal initializes its shell instrumentation over Remote SSH.

To help investigate, please share:

  • Which SSH extension you’re using - Microsoft Remote-SSH or Anysphere Remote SSH?
  • Whether you have any custom shell configuration in the remote .bashrc or .bash_profile
  • Whether you see any errors in the Output panel (View → Output, select “Remote SSH” from the dropdown)
4

Here are the details you requested:

  • SSH extension: Anysphere Remote SSH

  • Shell config: No custom .bashrc or .bash_profile on the remote. I do use a customized .zshrc, but since the AI terminal initializes a non-interactive bash shell, none of my zsh config should be running there.

  • Remote SSH Output panel: I don’t see any errors in View → Output → Remote SSH. The panel stays completely clean even when the AI terminal fails.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can collect!

7

I found the cause and fixed it.

On my remote machine I had this in ~/.bash_profile:

exec zsh

I originally needed this because chsh doesn’t work in my environment (network-managed accounts), so the only way to get zsh as my default login shell was to force bash to exec into it.

I fixed it by guarding the shell switch:

# ~/.bash_profile
# Skip switching to zsh when Cursor Agent is running
if [[ -n "$CURSOR_AGENT" ]]; then
  :
else
  exec zsh
fi

Now normal SSH sessions still give me zsh, and the Cursor AI terminal works correctly.

9

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