`alwaysApply` silently ignored in Rules from Team Plugins

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

When a Team marketplace Plugin contains a rule with alwaysApply: true, that rule is applied intelligently, without a way to make it required.

When asked agent why it’s not applied, this is the response:
this is a Cursor platform limitation with plugin-sourced rules. The system that injects rules into my context categorized it as agent_requestable_workspace_rules despite the alwaysApply: true frontmatter. I don’t control that categorization — it’s done before I see anything. The alwaysApply flag is respected for rules in your project’s .cursor/rules/ directory, but plugin-cached rules (under .cursor/plugins/cache/) appear to get downgraded to agent-requestable regardless of their frontmatter.

Additionally, when trying to change the Rule behavior through settings panel, it breaks the rule .mdc file by adding multiple blocks of:
—
description: …
alwaysApply: true
—

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a Plugin
  2. Create rule in that plugin, set alwaysApply: true
  3. In Cursor settings → Rules, Skills, Subagents, that rule will show “Agent decides when to apply”. 4. Using setting interface, change it to Always applied, save
  4. Rule still stays as “Agent decides when to apply”.

Expected Behavior

Rules with alwaysApply set to true should always be applied.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Screenshot 2026-04-13 at 2.20.37 PM.png
Screenshot 2026-04-13 at 2.20.37 PM.png1184×412 13.6 KB

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.0.16
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 475871d112608994deb2e3065dfb7c6b0baa0c50
Date: 2026-04-09T05:33:51.767Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.4.0

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Opus 4.6, Composer 2

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

6

Hi @pchalacis,

Thanks for the detailed report and screenshots. This is a confirmed bug – plugin rules with alwaysApply: true are being silently downgraded to “Agent decides when to apply.”

The issue where the settings UI adds duplicate frontmatter blocks when you try to change the rule type has also been confirmed as a related bug.

There’s a related thread reporting the same behavior. I’ve flagged both for our team.

As a temporary measure, you could duplicate the critical rules into your project’s .cursor/rules/ directory, where alwaysApply: true works correctly. Not ideal for team plugin workflows, but it will ensure the rules are always applied.