Managing terminals in Cursor is not very well thought out. If a chat spins up a server locally there is no indicator in the sidebar which chat has an active terminal, and the terminal tab in the right panel doesn’t show processes run by the AI. So if I want to run something in my own terminal, often it is conflicting with ports or processes already running in Cursor and forgotten about in an earlier chat.
Does anyone know how to find already running terminals? Shouldn’t the AI open terminal tabs in the right panel the same way it does browser tabs?
Hey, thanks for the feedback. The background terminals thing can definitely be confusing.
To find running terminals: commands the agent runs and background processes like a local server live in the integrated terminal. Open the Terminal panel via View > Terminal or `Ctrl+`` and check the dropdown in the top right of the Terminal panel. It lists all open terminals, including ones the agent created. From there you can switch to the one you need, see what’s running, and kill it using the trash icon.
If you’re hitting a port conflict and not sure what’s holding the port, you can quickly check:
macOS/Linux: lsof -i :3000 replace with your port
Windows: netstat -ano | findstr :3000
About showing which chat owns the active terminal, and the idea of opening terminal tabs in the right panel like browser tabs, that’s a valid request and we’ll consider it. Right now there’s no visual chat to terminal mapping in the UI.
Let me know if in your version the dropdown doesn’t show agent terminals. If so, share your Cursor version and OS and we’ll take a closer look.