Cursor doesn't follow symlinks to discover skills

[borekb (Borek Bernard)]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

I symlinked a skill folder to ~/.cursor/skills but the SKILL.md inside this directory is not discovered by Cursor. It’s possibly a similar bug that Codex CLI had recently: Allow symlinked Skill folders/files · Issue #8369 · openai/codex · GitHub

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a some-skill/SKILL.md somewhere on your disk
2. Symlink this some-skill directory to ~/.cursor/skills
3. See if Cursor picks it up in Cursor Settings / Skills

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.21
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: dc8361355d709f306d5159635a677a571b277bc0
Date: 2026-01-22T16:57:59.675Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[Colin]

Hey @borekb!

Thanks for reporting this. This is a known issue on our side (and also affects Rules), and we have a ticket open for this already. I’ve linked your report to it.

[Tom_0 (Tom)]

I just tested a symlink from <repo-root>/.cursor/skills to <repo-root>/.codex/skills, and it seemed to work fine in v2.4.21. Does this issue only affect symlinks in the home directory skills folder?

[Colin]

The other reported issue was for home directory rules, so it sounds like that’s the case!

[wakeupmh (Marcos Henrique)]

Describe the Bug

Basically, I’m installing new skills using Vercel skills.sh and showing them once to be used. After closing and reopening Cursor, the skills aren’t available to be used

Steps to Reproduce

Install a skill, then close and reopen your cursor. The skill is not there.

Expected Behavior

skills working fine

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.21 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: dc8361355d709f306d5159635a677a571b277bc0
Date: 2026-01-22T16:57:59.675Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Nightly
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[CristianDeluxe]

It’s happening to me as well.

Version: 2.4.22 (Universal)

VSCode Version: 1.105.1

Commit: 618c607a249dd7fd2ffc662c6531143833bebd40

Date: 2026-01-26T22:51:47.692Z (2 days ago)

Build Type: Stable

Release Track: Early Access

Electron: 39.2.7

Chromium: 142.0.7444.235

Node.js: 22.21.1

V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0

OS: Darwin arm64 25.2.0

[CristianDeluxe]

Leaving this here in case someone is in the same situation — I got it working by doing the following (on macOS):

1) Set recursive write permissions

chmod -R +r ~/.agents/skills

2) Remove all skills (be careful — back up first if you need to)

npx skills remove --all -y -g

3) Reinstall the skills you use (these are the ones in my case)

npx --yes skills add vercel-labs/agent-skills --all --global --yes
npx --yes skills add BusiRocket/agents-skills --all --global --yes

And it’s working for now:

[GeorgieVelev]

Thanks, this did the trick. Didn’t even need to restart Cursor.

Version: 2.4.21
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: dc8361355d709f306d5159635a677a571b277bc0
OS: Linux x64 6.18.6-arch1-1

[Chris_Wycoff]

This is actually annoying because symlinks are crucial for my workflows

[erez-dev]

we experience same issue. this is a must be fixed bug for developers to be able use cursor properly as many rules/skills should be agnostic to the developed product version.
please raise priority and solve ASAP. thanks

[wakeupmh (Marcos Henrique)]

any news team?

[Colin]

A fix is in the pipe! Waiting on a few things in order to be able to release, but it’s on the way.

[Colin]

Hey everyone!

This will be fixed in 2.5, which is just around the corner.

[borekb (Borek Bernard)]

I can confirm that this is now indeed fixed in 2.5

[Marcelo_Milhomem]

skills work but I am having the same issue with the agents/ folder now. not even fixing permissions it works anymore. was a new bug introduced or was it only fixed for skills?

same for rules/ , I haven’t check for command/ yet

Version: 2.5.20
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 511523af765daeb1fa69500ab0df5b6524424610
Date: 2026-02-19T20:41:31.942Z
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 25.2.0

[SavageSausage (jesse)]

I’m on v2.5.22, and skills installed via symlink still disappear from the Skills settings tab after restarting Cursor. Also, when trying to install skills by copying (instead of symlink) they are installed as Rules instead of Skills.

[Colin]

Hey @SavageSausage and @Marcelo_Milhomem!

Please raise new threads.