Alt+Enter "Use as Mode" hint shown but sticky skill handler not wired (glass_custom_modes gate off)

[Meine_Bewerbung]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Surface: Agents Window (Glass UI), not classic IDE side-panel chat.

Skill Custom Mode (“Use as Mode”) does not work. I select a skill from the / menu and press Alt+Enter to pin it for the session. Alt+Enter behaves the same as Enter: the skill attaches to one message only. No persistent Custom Mode badge appears on follow-up messages.

Sometimes the slash menu shows “Alt+Enter to Use as Mode” on the right (depends on skill/UI); sometimes it does not. In both cases the feature does not work.

Local analysis of 3.21.13 bundle (workbench.glass.main.js, customModeFeatureGates.js): sticky skill admission is gated by feature flag glass_custom_modes. When off, onStickySkillAdmit / onStickySelect are not wired, so Alt+Enter handler never runs. UI hint can still render.

Setting cursor.composer.shouldAllowCustomModes: true has no effect on this code path.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open Agents Window (not IDE chat).
2. Open or start a local agent chat.
3. Type / in the prompt input.
4. Highlight a skill (e.g. codebase-pilot, create-skill, commit-and-push).
5. Press Alt+Enter while the skill is highlighted.
6. Send a message with the skill attached.
7. Send a second message without typing / again.
8. Repeat steps 4–7 using Enter instead of Alt+Enter.

Result: no difference between Alt+Enter and Enter. Skill is one-shot only. No session-pinned mode badge on step 7.

Expected Behavior

Per docs (Prompting agents / Agent Skills):

• Alt+Enter should invoke the skill as Custom Mode (sticky for the session).
• Enter should attach the skill to one message only.
• A persistent mode badge should remain in the input area across turns until the user exits the mode.

Suggested fix: hide the Alt+Enter hint when sticky admit is disabled, or enable glass_custom_modes for affected users.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

N/A — UI/feature-gate issue, not model-specific. Tested with Composer 2.5 in Agents Window.

For AI issues: which model did you use?

N/A — UI/feature-gate issue, not model-specific. Tested with Composer 2.5 in Agents Window.

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

N/A (UI behavior, reproducible without a specific agent run)

Additional Information

Bundle details (3.21.13):

• customModeFeatureGates: glass_custom_modes / cloud_custom_modes default false
• When gate off: onStickySkillAdmit undefined → Alt+Enter falls through to onSelect()
• Blue skill chip (icon/color frontmatter) is NOT Custom Mode — one-shot attach only

User setting present but ineffective: “cursor.composer.shouldAllowCustomModes”: true

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the detailed report. Let’s narrow down where it’s breaking.

How it’s supposed to work in the Agents Window: the hint Alt+⏎ to Use as Mode shows only on the skill row that’s currently highlighted. It never shows on commands. Pressing Alt+Enter on that row should close the menu and set a mode badge icon plus skill name in the input area, and it should persist across messages. Regular Enter attaches the skill to a single message only. The cursor.composer.shouldAllowCustomModes setting is for classic IDE chat and does not affect this path, so it’s expected that it has no effect here.

Can you check from a clean state:

1. Restart Cursor.
2. Open the Agents Window and an existing local chat that already has at least one message.
3. Make sure you’re testing a project skill from .cursor/skills/<name>/SKILL.md not a plugin skill and not a global one.
4. Type / and use the arrow keys not the mouse to highlight that skill.
5. Check that you can see Alt+⏎ to Use as Mode on the right side of the highlighted row.
6. Hold Alt and press Enter once.
7. Look at the input area. Do you see a mode badge icon plus skill name, or only a skill chip like with regular Enter?
8. Repeat steps 4 to 7 in a new chat before the first message.

Tell me what you see in step 7 in both cases, the exact version from Help > About, and whether you have any tools running that register global hotkeys like Punto Switcher, PowerToys, AutoHotkey, or a GPU overlay. They can intercept Alt+Enter before Cursor sees it, and on Windows that’s a common cause of this behavior.

Also, the two screenshots in the post are game results screens, not Cursor. If you can attach a screenshot of the input area right after Alt+Enter, that would help a lot.