This is a known class of bugs where model settings like thinking/effort persist across restarts. Some fixes are already in 3.1.17, but the newest one from April 20th, about the case where a second open Cursor window brings back settings you changed in the first window, hasn’t made it into your build yet. It should land in the next update.
A couple quick questions to narrow this down:
- Do you usually keep multiple Cursor windows open at the same time? The latest fix is specifically for that case.
- Which model is selected (for example, Opus 4.7), and what do you see after restart? Is it the same model but forced into thinking, or does the model itself also change?
Related thread on the same build: Cursor update 3.1.17 limits all model choices to THINKING Please check if the symptoms match.
Once you install the next update, let me know if it’s gone.