Cloud Agents cannot invoke subagents; subagent delegation tool not available

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Somewhere else…

Describe the Bug

Cloud Agents do not have access to Cursor’s subagent delegation system. When a Cloud Agent is given tasks that require delegating to specialized subagents (e.g., repository-guardian, test-runner) defined in .cursor/agents/, it has no way to invoke them.

The task/subagent tool available in local IDE sessions is not exposed to Cloud Agents. As a result, Cloud Agents either:

  1. Report that they “do not have access to Cursor’s subagent delegation system”
  2. Create handoff documents instead of actually invoking subagents
  3. Cannot follow project workflows that depend on subagent delegation

Official documentation states subagents “can be used in the editor, CLI, and Cloud Agents,” but Cloud Agents cannot use subagents in practice.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Configure a project with subagent definitions in .cursor/agents/ (e.g., repository-guardian.md, test-runner.md) and rules instructing the main agent to “delegate to repository-guardian (async)”.

  2. Create a Cloud Agent task (e.g., via cursor.com/agents, GitHub integration, or Slack) that requires subagent delegation — e.g. “DEPLOY coach-portal to prod” or “Commit and push changes after running tests.”

  3. Run the task with a Cloud Agent. The agent receives the instructions and tries to follow them.

  4. Observe: The Cloud Agent cannot invoke subagents. It has no task tool or equivalent. It may output handoff text or suggest “@repository-guardian” but cannot actually launch the subagent. It may report it lacks access to the subagent delegation system.

  5. Compare: The same task in the local Cursor IDE with the same project and rules successfully invokes subagents via the task tool.

Expected Behavior

Cloud Agents should have the same subagent/task tool as local IDE sessions. When rules or prompts instruct delegation (e.g., “delegate to repository-guardian”), the Cloud Agent should be able to invoke the subagent with run_in_background: true, and the subagent should run in the background. This would allow Cloud Agents to match the documented behavior for editor, CLI, and Cloud Agents.

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Context: Cloud Agent (not IDE or CLI).

Cloud Agent runs on Cursor’s infrastructure; no local IDE or CLI version applies. Bug observed when Cloud Agent executes tasks. The subagent/task tool is not in the Cloud Agent’s available tool set.

If Cursor has a Cloud Agent or platform version to report, please specify.

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Composer 1.5 and then reproduced with Opus 4.2 High

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

bc-ac7fc5e7-c991-4e21-8188-4f8a13e2005b

bc-3a8e7c65-4261-42e8-bed9-a46d1e89d5c4

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

3

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known limitation: subagents currently only work in the IDE, not in Cloud Agents or the CLI. The same issue is described here: Subagent Delegation Not Working in Cloud Agents.

The docs in that spot are definitely misleading, I’ve passed this on to the team.

For now, workflows with subagents are only supported in the local IDE. I’ll post an update here if anything changes.

6

Hey there!

This should be fixed now. Please give it a try!