Automations “Pull request opened” never runs for Renovate/GitHub App PRs (even with “by Anyone”)

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Somewhere else…

Describe the Bug

A Cursor Automation with Pull request opened and author filter “by Anyone” starts runs for human PRs (including draft → ready), but never starts a run for PRs opened by renovate[bot].

Are pull_request opened events from GitHub Apps (renovate[bot], dependabot[bot], etc.) intentionally dropped even when the filter is “by Anyone”? In some of my repositories these automations work, but in others they don’t. Seems inconsistent.

For details/troubleshooting see: https://cursor.com/agents/bc-a2fe6722-e137-4a02-a0da-382eeb104212

For example broken automation see: https://cursor.com/automations/65324b17-84c7-11f1-a7d1-d6b4613131ce

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create an Automation on a repo with trigger Pull request opened, author filter “by Anyone”.
  2. Renovate opens a non-draft, same-repo PR.
  3. Check automation run history.

Expected Behavior

Same-repo, non-draft PRs opened by GitHub Apps (e.g. Renovate) should create an automation run when the filter is “by Anyone”.

Operating System

Other

Version Information

Cursor Cloud

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Grok 4.5

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

Hey @EvHaus,

To your direct question: no, this isn’t an intentional filter. “Pull request opened” with “by Anyone” is meant to fire for GitHub-App/bot-authored PRs (Renovate, Dependabot) just like human ones - the author filter isn’t what’s stopping it here. In certain repo/installation setups, PRs opened by a GitHub App aren’t getting matched to the automation at all, which is why it’s inconsistent across repos. I dug into this and it’s on our side, not your config, and I’ve flagged it with our team.

In the meantime, the reliable pattern is that any event on the PR coming from a human GitHub account connected to Cursor does trigger - that’s why your human PRs, including draft→ready, work. So if you configure Renovate to open its PRs as drafts and have a teammate click “Ready for review”, the automation fires on that ready-for-review event. It’s a manual stopgap rather than a real fix, but it’ll unblock the runs you need now.

It’s also worth confirming the Cursor GitHub App is installed and connected for that org (Dashboard → Integrations → GitHub) - a properly linked org installation is what lets bot-authored PRs trigger in some setups.

I’ll update here as I have more. If it helps, share which repos it works in vs. doesn’t and I can compare them.