Feature request for product/service
Cursor IDE
Describe the request
Title
workbench.editor.limit unexpectedly closes the Agent panel/editor
Environment
- Cursor Version: 3.11.19
- Platform: macOS
Description
When VS Code’s built-in editor limit is enabled (workbench.editor.limit.enabled), Cursor’s Agent panel/editor is treated as a regular editor. Once the editor limit is reached, the Agent editor may be automatically closed by the LRU eviction mechanism.
This results in the Agent disappearing unexpectedly, even though it is a core workspace feature rather than a normal file editor.
Steps to Reproduce
- Enable the following VS Code settings:
{
"workbench.editor.limit.enabled": true,
"workbench.editor.limit.value": 5
}
- Open several source files until the editor limit is reached.
- Open an Agent chat.
- Continue opening additional files.
Actual Behavior
The Agent editor/panel may be automatically closed as part of the editor eviction process.
From the user’s perspective, the Agent suddenly disappears, even though they only intended to limit the number of code editor tabs.
Expected Behavior
One of the following would provide a much better user experience:
- The Agent editor should not participate in
workbench.editor.limit. - Or provide a dedicated setting to exclude Agent tabs from editor eviction.
- Or mark Agent editors as “sticky”/“pinned” so they are never automatically closed by the editor limit.
Why this matters
Many users enable workbench.editor.limit to keep code tabs under control. However, Agent conversations are fundamentally different from regular file editors and are an important part of the Cursor workflow.
Automatically closing the Agent makes it appear that the Agent panel has disappeared, which is confusing and interrupts the workflow.
Keeping Agent tabs independent from the generic editor limit (or providing an opt-out) would significantly improve the user experience.
Operating System (if it applies)
MacOS