Cursor can't list branches of some repos

[pato (Rafael Pato)]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Background Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)

Describe the Bug

I’m trying to to dispatch cloud agents but they’re failing since they can’t list branches of repos within my organisation (I’m admin and I’ve recently allowed access to all repos of the org)

when requesting for the branches /api/background-composer/get-repository-branches I get a 401 with a ERROR_GITHUB_APP_NO_ACCESS and “Failed to create installation access token for installation (redacted)”

I’ve uninstalled and installed again the Github App but still no luck.

Could someone help?

Steps to Reproduce

I open the Cursor Agent dashboard, select a repo and when I try to select a branch, none are available

Expected Behavior

I open the Curso Agent dashboard, select a repo I should be able to pick the base branch for the cloud agent to start

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

(should be irrelevant since I’m talking about the web UI)

Version: 2.6.0-pre.33.patch.0 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 3a1ff150ed66f295af45ae38f28f6afaa05a4770
Date: 2026-02-23T23:34:26.530Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.4.0
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.0
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.3.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the report. This is a known issue. The GitHub installation token on our backend can sometimes expire or not match, so Cloud Agents can’t access org repos even after reinstalling the GitHub App.

A few other users have reported the same thing:

• Cloud Agents cannot load default branch during environment setup and lose write access to GitHub despite correct App installation and org permissions
• Failed to determine repository default branch

To help us debug this on the backend, could you share:

1. The installation ID from the error (you mentioned it was redacted. We need it to find the issue on our side)
2. The request ID from one of the failed attempts (from the URL on cursor.com/agents)
3. Does this affect all repos in your org, or only some?

Unfortunately, there’s no reliable workaround right now. Reinstalling the GitHub App sometimes temporarily fixes specific repos, but like you noticed, it’s inconsistent.

I’ll post an update here as soon as we have more info.

[pato (Rafael Pato)]

Hey Dean,

1. 72765963
2. x-vercel-id: fra1::iad1::wn8gz-1772629228715-6130e9b23b6c
3. it was only affecting some but now it affects all of them (perhaps due to uninstalling and installing again)

Is this something you can clear on your side? This is now blocking all our cloud agents from picking up tasks

[pato (Rafael Pato)]

So now it is able to list branches in the repos it couldn’t before but then ones that it could are now not working

Any way we can just clear it all now? I’ve given the app full access to the org’s repos so this shouldn’t ever change

[cgiles (Connor Giles)]

Hey @deanrie

I’m getting this as well so thought I’d share another example to help debug:

• Installation ID: 72138448
• x-vercel-id: yul1::iad1::5tqmg-1772775968721-aa2a6277dd0c
• Seems to only be affecting one (our main monorepo with a fair number of branches compared to minimal for others)

It’s currently blocking us from being able to use cloud agents so would appreciate your help working towards the root cause.

[fm360 (Felix)]

Hi!

I have the same problem. On the onboard page (https://cursor.com/onboard), I get the error message “Error loading default branch” and in the response of “api/background-composer/get-repository-branches”, the status code 401 and error “ERROR_GITHUB_NO_USER_CREDENTIALS” is displayed. Incidentally, GITHUB is not correct in my case, as we use GitLab (Github is not connected), but perhaps this can be ignored.

This thread could be related → Failed to determine repository default branch - #8 by ahar

The repositories are also not fully loaded; only a few are displayed in the drop-down list, but when you click on “Refresh”, /api/dashboard/fetch-all-installation-repos (POST) returns “405 Method Not Allowed” after a while… searching dynamically is not working. I hope that’s not due to the sheer number of repositories.

[fm360 (Felix)]

Body Response get-repository-branches

{
    "error": {
        "message": "Error",
        "details": [
            {
                "error": "ERROR_GITHUB_NO_USER_CREDENTIALS",
                "details": {
                    "title": "Failed to get service account access token",
                    "detail": "Failed to get service account access token for any user.",
                    "additionalInfo": {},
                    "buttons": [],
                    "planChoices": []
                },
                "isExpected": true
            }
        ]
    }
}

[BrunoVelasco23 (Bruno Velasco)]

Same here. I do have the app successfully installed under the org

{
    "error": {
        "message": "Error",
        "details": [
            {
                "error": "ERROR_GITHUB_APP_NO_ACCESS",
                "details": {
                    "title": "Failed to create installation access token for installation 117691292",
                    "detail": "An unknown GitHub error occurred when generating an installation token.",
                    "additionalInfo": {},
                    "buttons": [],
                    "planChoices": []
                },
                "isExpected": true
            }
        ]
    }
}