Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cursor IDE
Describe the Bug
Summary
Deleting a chat from the sidebar appears to work momentarily, but the chat reappears every time Cursor is restarted. The deletion never sticks.
Root Cause (confirmed by database inspection)
The delete operation removes the composer from allComposers in composer.composerHeaders (global state.vscdb), but it leaves behind stale references in two additional locations that Cursor reads on startup and uses to reconstruct the sidebar:
workbench.panel.composerChatViewPane. entries in the global state.vscdb — these store per-window panel state and still reference the deleted composer’s view ID (workbench.panel.aichat.view.). On next launch, Cursor sees these references and recreates the header entry.
workbench.panel.composerChatViewPane. entries in workspace-specific state.vscdb — located under %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\workspaceStorage<workspaceId>\state.vscdb. These are entirely separate from the global DB and are not cleaned at all on delete.
state.vscdb.backup files — Cursor maintains a .backup alongside both the global and each workspace state.vscdb. If the main DB is cleaned by any external means, Cursor restores from the backup on next startup, undoing the fix.
To Reproduce
Open any project in Cursor with more than one chat in the sidebar
Delete any chat via the sidebar UI
Fully close Cursor (not just the window)
Reopen Cursor → deleted chat reappears
Expected Behavior
Deleting a chat should atomically remove:
The allComposers header entry (global DB)
The corresponding composerData: key (global DB cursorDiskKV)
All composerChatViewPane.* panel references in the global DB
All composerChatViewPane.* panel references in every workspace DB
Both .backup files should be updated to match
Workaround
A Python cleanup script that handles all four locations (including .backup overwrite) permanently fixes the issue. Happy to share if useful.
Environment
Windows 10 (26100)
Cursor (latest as of April 2026)
Steps to Reproduce
Delete agent chat. As soon as a new agent chat is created or an agent responds to another chat, the deleted chat comes back.
Expected Behavior
Delete means “be gone” not “come back anytime”
Operating System
Windows 10/11
Version Information
Version: 3.0.12 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: a80ff7dfcaa45d7750f6e30be457261379c29b00
Date: 2026-04-04T00:13:18.452Z
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 10.0.26100
Does this stop you from using Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue
