Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Background Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)
Describe the Bug
We’re exploring Linear’s agent integration and evaluating whether to use Cursor’s built-in solution or build our own. The issue is that we can’t seem to customize the system prompt injected when a Background Agent is triggered from Linear; either via subassignment or via a @Cursor comment.
The hardcoded prompt is:
You've been assigned to resolve a Linear issue. Carefully analyze the issue and solve it by responding or writing code. Below you'll find the issue context and message history. Be sure to run and test code if it helps with your task.
We need to override this with a custom prompt (e.g., to instruct the agent to use specific MCP tools and scope its actions i.e. just triage the ticket and leave comments) . I couldn’t find any option for this in the settings page, the docs, or the agent configuration UI.
Is there any way to customize or override the Linear agent prompt? If not, consider this a feature request as in the ability to define a custom system prompt per integration source would make Background Agents significantly more useful for teams with established workflows.