Background agents do not load AGENTS.md

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Background Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)

Describe the Bug

The docs say that AGENTS.md is automatically loaded, however with background agents, it is not.

I even tried to load it via a cursor rule with:

---
alwaysApply: true
---

# AI Implementation

Refer to [AGENTS.md](mdc:AGENTS.md) for full rules.

Do you already have our “Project Instructions” in your context? Specifically the one that talks about our mandatory quality workflow

Thought for 3s
I can see a reference to AGENTS.md in my workspace rules, but I don’t have the full content loaded. Let me read that file to check if it contains your project instructions about the mandatory quality workflow.

Steps to Reproduce

  • Create an AGENTS.md
  • Start a background worker, ask it if it has the contents from AGENTS.md in its context.
  • It will say it does not.
  • It also doesn’t use any of the rules in practice.

Expected Behavior

AGENTS.md should be loaded into context in every form of using Cursor.

Operating System

Windows 10/11
MacOS
Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Not applicable, background agent.
Request ID: bc-a251da8e-a40a-4866-96dc-6a93353c910c

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue