# Configuration option to run terminal commands as a different profile

**URL:** <https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547>\
**Category:** Feature Requests\
**Created:** [April 10, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547 "2025-04-10T12:39:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![harmonic-jamie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/harmonic-jamie/32/29642_2.png) [@harmonic-jamie](https://forum.cursor.com/u/harmonic-jamie)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547/1 "2025-04-10T12:39:39Z")

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**Top-level ask:** It would be good if Cursor could be configured to use a different user for the shell commands it runs, rather than the current user. That way you could prevent quite a lot of disaster scenarios (such as the dreaded `sudo rm -rf /` and other mis-use of privileges).

One option: re-use ‘terminal profiles’ from VSCode and let the user select a profile in Cursor Settings \> Features \> Terminal.

For example, I could add this to my settings.json:

```json
  "terminal.integrated.profiles.linux": {
    "cursor-agent": {
      "path": "sudo",
      "args": [
        "-u",
        "cursor-agent",
        "-i"
      ],
    }
  }

```

And then I could select that profile in Cursor settings. I could create that user so that it cannot `sudo` and it doesn’t have access to things like my git credentials or any other super-user privileges that I have on my system.

I am assuming that there are similar options for windows and MacOS, making this a useful cross-platform feature.

Indeed this could be _brilliant_ for being able to set Cursor Agent up with entirely separate credentials for things like GitLab and GitHub and whatnot so that it cannot perform destructive actions like force-pushes.

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**Author:** ![peternixey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/cursor1/user_avatar/forum.cursor.com/peternixey/32/45993_2.png) [@peternixey](https://forum.cursor.com/u/peternixey)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2025, 3:35pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547/2 "2025-04-10T15:35:52Z")

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Plus many many.

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**Author:** ![tiz.io](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/50afbb/32.png) [@tiz.io](https://forum.cursor.com/u/tiz.io)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547/3 "2025-04-15T15:38:07Z")

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This would be a huge improvement. I want Cursor to have a less privileged user, and I see a strong correlation between zsh users (many with oh-my-zsh) and wonky terminal controls.

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**Author:** ![Leonard\_Muller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/aca169/32.png) [@Leonard\_Muller](https://forum.cursor.com/u/Leonard_Muller)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2026, 2:13pm UTC](https://forum.cursor.com/t/configuration-option-to-run-terminal-commands-as-a-different-profile/77547/4 "2026-02-05T14:13:47Z")

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Cannot wish this enough. Even within a repository, the rules by .cursorignore are only guidelines for indexing to the agent and not hard enforced.