Conflict with the automatically installed node.js that Cursor uses for agents

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

I use an ARM laptop, but installed a x64 version of node.js on my system. The reason for this is that the ARM version of node.js has major issues and x64 emulation is really good on ARM. Cursor still installs it’s own version of ARM node.js and this causes major issues with my node modules.

For instance. Agents can’t run unit tests.

Steps to Reproduce

Install the x64 version of node.js on an ARM Windows 11 system. Then some node modules stop working in your project when ran by an agent.

Expected Behavior

I expect that Cursor would let me choose which version of node.js I want to use. Or even better know that I use x64.

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.1.17 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: fce1e9ab7844f9ea35793da01e634aa7e50bce90
Date: 2026-04-19T19:33:58.189Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT arm64 10.0.26200

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report.

This is working as expected, but your case is a real edge case. Cursor bundles node.exe at resources/helpers/node.exe, and the architecture of that binary is fixed when the installer is built. That means the ARM64 Cursor build ships an ARM64 Node, and the x64 Cursor build ships an x64 Node. The agent prepends that directory to PATH, so native modules compiled for x64 Node crash when they’re loaded by ARM64 Node. There’s no IDE-side switch for this yet.

A workaround that should help is to install the x64 Cursor build instead of ARM64. On Windows 11 ARM it’ll run via Prism emulation, same as your x64 Node, and the bundled Node inside Cursor will be x64 so it matches your modules. Performance will be a bit lower, but it’s the most direct way to get tests working.

I also reported this internally as a request to let you choose the agent Node on Windows ARM. I can’t share an ETA, but it’s tracked. Let me know if switching to the x64 build helped.

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