Cursor ignores rules and policies

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

My development process is to build up a ticket with full specifications for the work. Approval of the ticket is required before moving to implementation.

Cursor consistently starts implementation prior to the plan being approved. Cursor ignores policies to wait for approval and the ticket templates include an approval date that is required before moving to implementation.

As it is not possible for the LLM to meet specifications that it does not have, this is very bad behavior. Either I stop using the LLM to plan… or there must be some way to make it wait to approve the plan.

Request ID: 00972f87-5472-47e7-8f2b-83d23c26f5b4

Steps to Reproduce

Using Sonnet 4.6 I ask Cursor to create a ticket in a folder using a ticket template and a planning policy. It will create the ticket file appropriately and will sometimes immediately jump to implementation.

Asking for it to modify this ticket file will often trigger it to start implementation.

I have a rule to require approval.

Expected Behavior

When told to modify a plan in a planning document, it should not jump to modifying code until asked.

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.3.27 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 80b138a7a0a948e1a798e9ed7867d76a1ba9a310
Date: 2026-05-08T02:26:22.498Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Sonnet 4.6

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

Request ID: 00972f87-5472-47e7-8f2b-83d23c26f5b4

Additional Information

It is very wasteful to have to revert changes in order to ensure that all of the specifications are correct. Quite often the changes are very detailed and take multiple passes to ensure that all of the details are covered and that the plan is appropriate for the work requested.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report and the Request ID.

A couple quick points:

  1. Chat length. This chat had about 263 messages and 106K input tokens. At that size, rule-following gets noticeably worse for any model since older instructions get diluted by newer context. For long tasks, especially planning, it’s better to start a new chat from time to time.

  2. Plan Mode is the structured fix for your use case. A custom rule like “don’t implement until approved” is a soft constraint, so the model can still break it. Plan Mode blocks file changes at the harness level until you click “Build”. So the model literally can’t start implementing even if it tries. That’s exactly the behavior you’re asking for.

Docs: Plan Mode | Cursor Docs

  1. User Rules. If you have critical rules that must be followed, move them into User Rules at Settings → Rules → User Rules, not only project rules. User Rules are injected more strongly and work more reliably in long chats.

Related threads if you’re interested: Agents ignoring instructions (deciding to go ahead and build on it's own), Composer 2 making changes in Plan mode.

Let me know if Plan Mode helps for the planning phase.