Define clear policy on VS Code base updates

Ideas Feature Requests
1

Feature request for product/service

Describe the request

My experience

When I was trying out Cursor, it was always bugging me that when I read about some feature in VS Code / VS Code extensions and then open Cursor to try it out, there is always possible confusion - never know if feature doesn’t work, it’s located elsewhere and some setting is missing or it’s Cursor’s VS Code base is not yet updated and this feature doesn’t exist yet.

Same for the bugs in VS Code features - when I see some odd behaviour, I’m always confused whether it’s something worth investigating or maybe it’s issue is already solved and it’s just outdated VS Code base.

So to confirm both those cases, I still need to have VS Code installed on my system, to quickly jump there and confirm the behaviour.

Also there is an issue with missing security updates for VS Code or it’s extensions.

And it all adds up and basically when I think about Cursor, I also need to weight-in that it means general worse VS Code experience as it’s going to use outdated VS Code, half a year or more behind and it’s unclear when it’s going to catch up.

So when you compare Cursor to other AI extensions, you not just compare their AI features, but you also need to consider whether you’re okay with missing out on general VS Code feature.

The policy

Currently Cursor is using 1.99 (March 2025), while VS Code latest version is 1.103 (August 2025), so there is a 5 months lag.

Would be nice to have a clearly defined and documented policy on this - e.g Cursor VS Code version is always =(latest - x). So user would always know what to expect and it will be easier for them to consider whether they’re okay with this lag.

And of course also would be great if this lag can be minimized - personally I would be okay with 1-2 versions delay, but half of a year delay means I’m completely out of the loop of the new VS Code features. But still, clearly defined delay is very important, even if it’s large, so I would be able to consider it, instead of just being left clueless and guessing.

1 Like
2

Hi @Andrej730 thank you for the feature request, we are updating the base vscode version periodically and will consider also your request.

As there are some features that are in vscode but not accessible in vscode forks we must test vscode updates first and spend time on either fixing issues, adding our own alternatives or disabling parts altogether.

Additionally vscode uses the vscode marketplace which forks can not use, therefore we use OpenVSX which has differences in extensions and versions available.

Depending on changes in one version we may have to sometimes pick another version that doesnt have certain issues or less of them which means it is not a simple mathematical formula of = latest - x versions.

We are regularly checking vscode updates and this year we included a few already in our releases.

In summary, there will always be differences in versions, features and extensions that are not predictable upfront.