Cannot find devcontainer.json file

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Running ‘DevContainers: Reopen in Container’ cannot find devcontainer.json. It used to be able to do so a couple of days ago with the same directory/same devcontainer.json file, so not sure why it wouldn’t work now.

Rerunning the same menu in vscode works fine.

I’m running Cursor on a Windows machine, opened an SSH session into a Linux machine with Remote-SSH, and am trying to reopen in container within the Linux machine.

The version of anysphere.remote-containers is 1.0.22

Steps to Reproduce

username@hostname:/path/to/workspace$ ls .devcontainer
devcontainer.json
# Ctrl+Shift+P, Dev Containers: Reopen in Container
# Output from 'output'
2025-08-16 17:58:29.161 [info] Checking for exec server for remote authority: [redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.161 [info] Using remote exec server for authority: [redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.168 [info] Getting remote exec server for authority: [redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.169 [info] [docker info]: Running command: docker
2025-08-16 17:58:29.169 [info] [sanity check node][stdout]: v20.18.2
2025-08-16 17:58:29.218 [info] [docker info]: Command completed with exit code 0
2025-08-16 17:58:29.218 [info] docker version: Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:    28.3.3
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.26.1
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v2.39.1
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Server:
 Containers: 14
  Running: 5
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 9
 Images: 56
 Server Version: 28.3.3
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: extfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: false
  Native Overlay Diff: true
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: systemd
 Cgroup Version: 2
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 CDI spec directories:
  /etc/cdi
  /var/run/cdi
 Swarm: inactive
 Runtimes: nvidia runc io.containerd.runc.v2
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: 05044ec0a9a75232cad458027ca83437aae3f4da
 runc version: v1.2.5-0-g59923ef
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  apparmor
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 6.8.0-55-lowlatency-64k
 Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: aarch64
 CPUs: [redacted]
 Total Memory: [redacted]
 Name: [redacted]
 ID: [redacted]
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 Username: [redacted]
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  ::1/128
  127.0.0.0/8
 Live Restore Enabled: false
2025-08-16 17:58:29.219 [info] Searching for devcontainer.json files
2025-08-16 17:58:29.252 [info] Copying devcontainer CLI from c:\Users\[redacted]\.cursor\extensions\anysphere.remote-containers-1.0.22\dist\@devcontainers to /tmp/devcontainer-cli-[redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.363 [info] Devcontainer CLI written to /tmp/devcontainer-cli-[redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.364 [info] Found 0 devcontainer.json files: 
2025-08-16 17:58:29.365 [error] Failed to reopen folder in container No devcontainer.json files found. Please define the devcontainer in '.devcontainer/devcontainer.json', '.devcontainer.json', or '.devcontainer/**/devcontainer.json'
2025-08-16 17:58:29.399 [info] Copying forwarder.js to /tmp/devcontainer-cli-[redacted]
2025-08-16 17:58:29.431 [info] Copying devcontainerShutdownMonitor.js to /tmp/devcontainer-cli-[redacted]






### Operating System
Linux

### Current Cursor Version (Menu -> About Cursor -> Copy)
Version: 1.4.5 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: af58d92614edb1f72bdd756615d131bf8dfa5290
Date: 2025-08-13T02:08:56.371Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22621



### Does this stop you from using Cursor
Yes - Cursor is unusable
1 Like

Also running into this error. I’m running Cursor on a Apple Silicon M1 MBP, opening an SSH into a linux machine with Remote-SSH, and also trying to reopen in container within the Linux machine.

As `user532` mentioned, I also can confirm this menu action works correctly when I take the same “Reopen in Container“ action in VSCode – so this issue is unique to the Cursor Remote SSH plugin.

Can confirm updating to the latest version of Cursor fixes this. Working version:

Version: 1.5.5
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 823f58d4f60b795a6aefb9955933f3a2f0331d70
Date: 2025-08-25T17:40:25.290Z
Electron: 34.5.8
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.1
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

cc: @user523

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