Cursor not respecting my model choice

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

I selected Codex 5.3. Cursor is spawning subagents in Composer 2.

Steps to Reproduce

chat - agent - codex 5.3

then it spawns composer 2 subagents

Expected Behavior

Respect the model I choose, and especially don’t replace it with an inferior model

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.2.10 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 87903b25fe9074e35b9ba372ed5bf14de5835960
Date: 2026-04-24T00:45:10.396Z
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 10.0.19045

Additional Information

I’m listing Cursor as unusable because I don’t trust Composer, which is why I don’t use it.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

Hi @A_K2 Thanks for the forum post! This is expected behavior, the explore subagent uses the Composer model by default. It’s a great fit for the task. However, if you wish to override it, you can by doing something like this. (Ask Cursor to help you create a subagent like this):


name: odysseus-explorer
description: Codebase exploration using Codex 5.3 instead of Composer 2.
model: gpt-5.3-codex-high-fast
readonly: true

You are a read-only codebase exploration specialist. Search the repo
and return a concise summary of relevant files, symbols, and code paths.
Do not modify any files.

Then, when you want to invoke it, say something like "Use Odysseus Explorer to complete my task" then when the subagent spins up, you’ll see it is using the model you’ve defined in the subagent rather than the default Composer-2.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions!

“It’s a great fit for the task.”

No, it’s not. I don’t use the model becasue in my experience it’s an inferior model to the ones I choose, and when I’ve tried working with it, I’ve been unhappy with the results.

Also, Cursor has a very bad habit of ignoring IDE rules and often, even in the same chat, forgets instructions it was given at the beginning.

How do I turn off subagents? I can’t find a toggle for it in the settings. If the answer is to tell the chat to not use them, then see my statement about chats losing instructions.

If there is no toggle to turn it off, what version of Cursor do I need to regress to to not have Composer x subagnets. I monitor my chat’s activities when working and never saw Composer subagents until yesterday.