Differences between Cursor CLI and Cursor Glass?

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1

Hello,

I’m using Cursor CLI on tmux, but I’m getting an infinite scroll bug. So I’m looking into Cursor Glass.

I’m curious about the exact differences:

  1. What can Glass do that CLI can’t? (ex, @multitask)

  2. What can CLI do that Glass can’t?

Thank you.

5

Hey, thanks for the request. Quick comparison:

What Glass Agents Window can do that the CLI can’t:

  • Run and monitor multiple agents in parallel in one window, what you call multitask. The CLI is one interactive agent per terminal process.
  • Rich GUI like a collapsible diff view, inline review with Keep and Undo, tabs, and integration with the editor and extensions.

What the CLI can do that Glass can’t, or does differently:

  • Headless and scriptable mode: cursor-agent -p --output-format text|json|stream-json "<prompt>" for automation and pipelines.
  • Works anywhere you have a terminal, like SSH, remote servers, tmux and WSL2, no GUI needed.
  • Isolation via git worktree with --worktree.
  • Send a task to a background or cloud agent with the & prefix, then track it on cursor.com/agents or from mobile.

What both have in common: session persistence and resume using cursor-agent ls, cursor-agent resume, --resume <id>, --continue, /resume, plus MCP servers and background and cloud agents.

About multitask from the CLI: there is no single dashboard for multiple agents inside the CLI. To run in parallel, start multiple cursor-agent instances, for example in separate tmux panes or with isolated --worktree checkouts, or send requests to cloud and background agents.

About infinite scroll in tmux: this is a known bug. The dialog gets re-rendered from the start when you switch panes or zoom a pane, which causes the infinite scroll. This is not an unavoidable tmux or CLI limitation, it’s a bug on our side, but there is no ETA for a fix yet. Workarounds for now:

  • Don’t use tmux zoom toggle
  • Keep the CLI in a dedicated pane
  • Enable mouse mode in tmux for scrollback
  • To reduce output, use non-interactive mode: cursor-agent -p --output-format text "<prompt>" prints only the final answer

Let me know if you still have questions.