Disabled Team Rules still loaded into context

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

I have several team rules defined.
When I disable them in the cursor.com ui (https://cursor.com/en-US/dashboard/team-content)
and reopen Cursor, with a new agent session, the disabled rules are still loaded into the context.

Evidence:

Fact Implication
Rules appear in <always_applied_workspace_rules> in the Agent system prompt Cursor’s Agent session builder is treating them as always-on
Rules have no .mdc file on disk They are server-side team rules, not local project rules
cursor/disabledTeamRules in state.vscdb explicitly lists all three The user’s opt-out was recorded correctly by the UI
Rules still appear in the system prompt despite being in the disabled list The Agent system prompt builder does not check disabledTeamRules before injecting team rules

Broken flow:

User toggles rule OFF in Cursor UI
        ↓
Cursor writes rule name to cursor/disabledTeamRules in state.vscdb ✅
        ↓
User opens Agent session
        ↓
Cursor fetches team rules from backend ✅
        ↓
Cursor builds Agent system prompt
        ↓
[BUG] disabledTeamRules list is NOT consulted ❌
        ↓
All team rules injected into system prompt regardless of user preference

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Open Cursor Settings → Rules
  2. Find a team rule and toggle it OFF
  3. Verify via SQLite that the rule name was added to cursor/disabledTeamRules:
    sqlite3 "~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb" \
  "SELECT value FROM ItemTable WHERE key = 'cursor/disabledTeamRules';"
  4. Open any Agent/Chat session
  5. Ask the agent to describe its system prompt context (or observe context window usage)
  6. Expected: Disabled rules should not appear in system prompt
  7. Actual: Disabled rules appear as always_applied_workspace_rules

Expected Behavior

Disabled rules should not be loaded into the context

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.0.16 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 475871d112608994deb2e3065dfb7c6b0baa0c50
Date: 2026-04-09T05:33:51.767Z
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: Darwin arm64 25.4.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

4

Hey @Lior_Schejter!

I can reproduce an issue with team rules, although it’s not exactly the scenario you describe.

When I disable them in the cursor.com UI (https://cursor.com/en-US/dashboard/team-content) and reopen Cursor, with a new agent session, the disabled rules are still loaded into the context.

I can’t reproduce this. If I disable a rule on cursor.com, it no longer appears in the agent context. I’ve verified this with internal tooling that’s more reliable than asking the agent to self-report.

However, if a rule is active on cursor.com (and marked as optional) and you disable it locally in Cursor Settings → Rules, the rule is still injected into the agent prompt. That’s a confirmed bug on our end, and I’ve filed it internally.

If your case is specifically about disabling rules on cursor.com (not locally), could you try upgrading to the latest version and testing again? Also, make sure you’re testing in a new chat session. Existing conversations won’t pick up rule changes.

6

My mistake, I wasn’t precise.
The bug is indeed that it’s marked as optional and active in cursor.com, and disabled locally.
and still gets injected into the context.

As you confirm here, it’s apparently a bug. Thanks for confirming.

any expectation on when it’s going to be fixed?

9

No ETA to share at the moment!