Curosr >=2.2 periodically POST to MCP server to discover tools - how to disable

[Tyzio]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

With the 2.2 version, I observe that Cursor periodically sends POST to MCP server to discover tools/prompt/resources. MCP server must response every time otherwise Cursor marks the server as error.

If you have MCP server hosted e.g. as container app (that is cost by usage) with replica scaling to 0 (nothing is asking MCP server == no working container app, no costs) such behavior blocks scaling to 0 and keep the MCP server 24h/7d online.

In Cursor < 2.2, there were no periodic POST, only ping (every 15s) via SSE channel and the channel could be disabled (by responding with 405 on GET for stateless MCP servers). So, in such configuration, not used MCP server cost nothing (we reduce costs about 70%)

Now situation changes because of periodic POST - We are not able to automatically up/down rarely used MCP servers.

Steps to Reproduce

Run MCP server and observer server logs

Expected Behavior

Remove this periodic discovery or add possibility to disable periodic discovery. It could be additional parameter in mcp.json.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.2.14
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 1685afce45886aa5579025ac7e077fc3d4369c50
Date: 2025-12-11T01:12:35.790Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 6.14.0-37-generic

Additional Information

Still there is a problem with Error mark. If server does not responding to client request, the Error indication appears (OK), but later when it starts to respond, the indicator does not change to Green.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[Tyzio]

I can imagine that periodic discovery of tools/prompts and resources can be useful and allows to build dynamic MCP server but looking from other perspective it would be nice to have possibility to turn off and on MCP server based on requests.

Such off/on switch is available out of the box in Azure with container apps + scaller with replica min value=0. You pay for usage and this is great solution to have tools that are not used very often.

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the report.

You’re right - behavior seems to have changed in 2.2. There’s currently no built-in option to disable periodic discovery requests to MCP servers.

Your use case (scaling-to-zero to optimize costs for rarely used MCP servers) is valid, especially in enterprise environments. I’ll create a ticket for the engineering team to consider adding a configurable parameter in mcp.json to control this behavior.

[Tyzio]

Thank you.

I would also vote for having such dynamic discovery disabled by default.

[Tyzio]

I’ve just checked Cursor 2.2.43 — in stateless HTTP connections, the dynamic discovery of tools, prompts, and resources is no longer visible. The Azure http-scaler works as expected.
Thank you.