ERROR_GITHUB_USER_NO_ACCESS when trying to fetch brances for a repository from the "Agents" page

[pedroyan1 (Pedro Yan Ornelas)]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Background Agent (GitHub, Slack, Web, Linear)

Describe the Bug

One of our team members was recently granted write access to repositories under our GitHub organization. Prior to receiving those permissions, he attempted to use Cursor Agents on repository A and, as expected, was unable to do so.

However, even after being granted the appropriate permissions across all repositories in the organization, Cursor still fails to fetch branches for repository A.

The get-repository-branches request consistently fails with the following error:

{
  "error": {
    "message": "Error",
    "details": [
      {
        "error": "ERROR_GITHUB_USER_NO_ACCESS",
        "details": {
          "title": "No GitHub access token found with access to repository incention/fanhub",
          "detail": "",
          "additionalInfo": {},
          "buttons": [],
          "planChoices": [],
          "analyticsMetadata": {
            "actionRequired": "login"
          }
        },
        "isExpected": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

This behavior is unexpected because the team member definitely has access to the repository. We verified this by having him successfully clone the repository, push commits, and open PRs without issues.

What makes this even stranger is that the issue appears to be scoped specifically to repository A. If the same team member attempts to use Cursor Agents on repository B (another private repository within the same organization), everything works correctly. He is able to fetch branches and start workers without any problems.

This makes us suspect there may be some stale permission caching or repository-specific authorization issue on Cursor’s side.

We already tried disconnecting and reconnecting the app on his account to no avail.

We also triple-checked that Cursor has permission to see every repository inside of our org and confirm that that’s the case. Every other team member can use Cursor Web Agents without issues.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create an organization account.
2. Create a private repository under the organization account.
3. Set up a cursor team plan.
4. Add members to the cursor team plan, but do not add them to the organization yet.
5. Have that team member try to fire up a cursor agent from Slack.
6. Get a denial message.
7. Give access to the team member to the organization and write permission to the private repository.
8. Try to use the agent on the agents page from the teammate’s account and watch the branch listing keep failing.

Expected Behavior

If the user has permissions to write to a repository and the Cursor app has permissions to see every repository in an organization, that user should be able to effortlessly fire background agents to do work in the repository.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

We’re using the web app.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable