Cursor's remote SSH incorrect handling of process IDs

Here’s a formatted bug report for the Cursor team:

Remote SSH Connection Failure

Description

When attempting to connect to a remote container using Cursor’s remote SSH functionality, the connection fails due to an incorrect handling of process IDs being passed as pager arguments.

Expected Behavior

  • Cursor should successfully connect to remote containers via SSH, similar to VS Code’s remote SSH functionality

  • The command cursor --remote ssh-remote+[container-name] /work should work as expected

Actual Behavior

  • Connection fails with pager-related errors

  • Process IDs are being incorrectly passed as --pager arguments

  • Key error message: error: invalid value '3503' for '--pager <PAGER>'

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Set up an SSH connection to a remote container

  2. Run cursor --remote ssh-remote+[container-name] /work

  3. Observe connection failure

Environment

  • Cursor version: 0.42.4

  • OS: macOS

  • Remote system: Linux container

  • VS Code Remote SSH extension version: 0.113.1

Comparison

The same connection works perfectly using VS Code with the command:

code --remote ssh-remote+[container-name] /work

Relevant Logs

log

[15:24:36.022] > Spawned remote CLI: 3503

[15:24:36.022] stderr> error: invalid value ‘3503’ for ‘–pager ’

[15:24:36.022] stderr> [possible values: auto, always, disable]

Technical Details

The error occurs during the remote CLI spawning process. The process ID (in this case, 3503) is being incorrectly passed as a --pager argument, which only accepts auto, always, or disable as valid values.

Full error trace available if needed.

Impact

This bug prevents users from using Cursor’s remote development capabilities, forcing them to fall back to VS Code for remote connections.