Cursor 3.0 Agentic IDE – Huge Potential, but Blocked by Key Usability Gaps

Ideas Feedback
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1

I recently made the switch to Cursor’s new agentic IDE experience and decided to try 3.0 after launch. Overall, I want to start positively: this is moving in a seriously impressive direction. The potential here is obvious, and when it works well, it feels like a glimpse into the future of development workflows.

However, there are a number of friction points that currently make it difficult to use as a primary IDE. In practice, I’m forced to keep switching back to the old mode, which breaks the experience.

Below is a prioritised list of issues, ordered by impact on day-to-day usability. I’m keen for people to weigh in so we can point the team to focus on the highest-leverage improvements.

1) No VS Code Extensions Support

This is the single biggest issue. There’s no access to the VS Code extension ecosystem within the file system:

  • No Prettier

  • No TypeScript tooling extensions

  • No linting integrations

This makes reviewing and editing agent-generated code significantly harder and more frustrating. For many developers, extensions are non-negotiable.

2) Diff View is Currently Unusable

There are multiple issues here that compound:

  • Diff view shows the entire file as new if touched by an agent, rather than actual changes

  • Toggle is scoped per file, not global

  • Forces reliance on Git changes view (cmd+e)

  • Git changes view uses infinite scroll, making navigation error-prone

This breaks a core workflow: reviewing agent changes efficiently.

3) Fragmented File Navigation & Review Experience

Right now, reviewing and navigating changes feels split across multiple modes:

  • Clicking file links in agent output opens new tabs

  • You’re pushed into file browsing mode, separate from changes

  • Context switching becomes constant and disorienting

Suggested direction is to unify this into a single view:

  • Right panel shows full file with highlighted changes

  • Toggle between:

    • “Diff-only” (for quick review)

    • “Full file” (for deeper context)

This would serve both quick “vibe coding” workflows and larger codebase review workflows. Developers naturally move between these modes—this shouldn’t require switching UI paradigms.

4) File Search Panel is Weak

  • No ability to filter file types

  • Nearly unusable in large TypeScript projects (compiled files pollute results)

The new cmd+p search is much better (thank you for that), but It would be nice to have file-type filtering/exclusion

5) No VS Code Custom Themes

  • Makes code feel unfamiliar and harder to read

  • Immediate friction for anyone coming from a customised setup

This feels like relatively low-hanging fruit with high perceived impact.

6) No Auto-Refresh in Built-in Browser

  • Changes to local dev apps don’t auto-refresh

  • Forces manual refresh or switching to external browser

Breaks the “all-in-one” workflow vision.

7) Missing Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Examples:

  • Close other tabs

  • Close tabs to the right

These are small individually but add up to constant friction.

8) Built-in Browser Limitations

  • No quick keyboard shortcut to jump back to it

  • No password/session memory → repeated logins

This makes it impractical vs using a normal browser, which undermines the integrated experience.

4

Hey, thanks for such structured feedback. It’s really helpful when issues are listed with priorities.

I’ll go through the main points:

  1. VS Code extensions
    This is the most common request for the Agents Window right now. For tasks that need extensions like Prettier and linting, you can switch to classic mode for now.

2-3) Diff view and file navigation
We already fixed some issues with full diffs where the whole file shows as new. It’d help if you can share your Cursor version via Help > About so we can tell if this is a regression or something new.

  1. File search
    Agreed. In large TypeScript projects with compiled files, it’s painful without file type filtering.

  2. Custom themes
    For now, Glass only supports light and dark themes. Noted.

6, 8) Built-in browser
Auto-refresh and session persistence are noted.

  1. Keyboard shortcuts
    Also noted.

The Agents Window is still early, and all this feedback is being tracked. Send your Cursor version, I’d like to dig into point 2 in more detail.

5

Does the current lack of vs code extension support also extend to WSL terminal extension support and thus WSL terminals in AW? connecting the dots that it does indeed.

Yes, this one is a blocker for me switching over and giving it a proper run.

Looking forward to that time, however!

6

@darylantony Yep, that’s right, WSL isn’t supported in the Agents Window yet. That’s because remote extensions like WSL and Dev Containers don’t work in Glass right now. A few users have already run into this:

The team knows about the issue. For now, it’s best to open WSL workspaces in classic mode, everything works there like before.

7

I completely agree, the ability for me to jump in and edit code, run tests, use plugins manually was incredibly important. I’ve specifically picked Cursor because I can vibe code a simple feature and course correct along the way, or fix it myself if I want. Not being able to use plugins to run the tests, formatting, etc. It’s bad.

A few things I ran into today were trying to add new files, and they straight up were created in a completely different folder. Right clicking on a file to add it to the conversation, that was gone. That feedback where I know that file will be sent is invaluable. I can’t just remember every file by typing @… another super nice thing that seems to be gone was the ability to not type the - and _ in file names. I could @loaduserstest, and it would find load_users_test.sql.

I need to browse and look at files, so I know what to pass to the agent, and that is such a poor experience right now in 3.0. I can look at the file and see if it’s behaving correctly, or.. in 3.0 I almost always have to ask it to check for me. I hate that, what a waste.

Please don’t just turn into codex & claude code and force everyone down that route. Cursors been incredibly powerful because it still leaves that code front-and-center with a very fast and immediate feedback loop. Pushing that exclusively through a chat window is very frustrating, and is much slower.

8

Thanks for the reply! My version info is below - no updates available in the app.

Having played around all of today on cursor 3 I feel point 2-3 is such a bug bare. Definitely keen to know if there is appetite to rework diff and file browsing brought into one. There shouldn’t need to be a different view of changes from the file system - bring them together and have a toggle to either:

  • show all source code with diff highlighting
  • show only diff
  • show only source code (no diff).

Then all agent links just direct to files with a global setting to remember what view you prefer. Bin the separate file/changes directory and suddenly it’s super clean.

Version: 3.0.12 (Universal)

VSCode Version: 1.105.1