In plan mode, models cannot seem to update todo list properly

[jrista (Jon)]

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

I’ve been trying to use plan mode more, however I keep running into a problem with the todo list and build it feature. The todo lists cannot be updated by the model, it seems, at least not when the prompt is to REMOVE an unnecessary or unwanted step in the plan TODO list. I have run into this repeatedly, especially when using GPT-5 to plan, where early planning iterations resulted in a TODO list that wasn’t right, contained steps I don’t want or don’t need, etc. The “plan” documentation itself, can be updated, but it seems that the TODO list can only be ADDED TO, once it exists. Any other change, even removing a step, appears to be impossible.

I have noticed as well, that when I try to instruct the model to update the todo list, there will often be failed tool calls, or tool calls that work with strings that don’t exist, etc. I have also had the model report that the todo list is empty in some cases. Ironically, after some prompts, that is entirely expected, however the todo list still appears unchanged.

At least…it appears unchanged in the UI… Perhaps the bug, is not necessarily that the model/agent cannot change the TODO list, but that any changes other than additions to, do not get reflected in the UI properly? (Just realizing this right now.)

In any case, the todo lists as far as I can see as the user, can only be added to, and old unwanted, unnecessary, or even flat out incorrect steps remain despite all efforts to remove them. If it is just a UI bug, then this makes the planning mode very difficult to use, as I honestly cannot tell what is going to be implemented if I hit the “Build” button.

Steps to Reproduce

Start a plan with plan mode.
Refine the plan with changes.
Note that steps in the todo list are unchanged according to your refinements.
Instruct model to remove unwanted steps.
Note that steps in the toto list are still unchanged according to your refinements.
Instruct the model to add additional work to plan.
Note that new steps appear at end of todo list (even if new steps should be inserted in the middle somewhere.)
Weep at your inability to actually enact your plan, as WHAT will actually be built is now a total unknown.
Weep more as you start the entire. process. over. from. scratch.

Expected Behavior

TODO list should always reflect the actual build steps. Agent/model MUST be able to add AND REMOVE steps in accordance with the final nature of the plan. Build button should run through the same TODO list the user sees in the UI, to eliminate any confusion and botched plan implementations.

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.0.69
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 63fcac100bd5d5749f2a98aa47d65f6eca61db30
Date: 2025-11-07T18:21:29.650Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.0.0

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Composer 1
Sonnet 4.5
GPT-5

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the report. This is super helpful - especially your insight about a possible UI sync issue (the model updates the TODO list, but the UI doesn’t reflect it).

This is a bug in Plan Mode that the team is already investigating. Could you help with debugging by sharing:

• Request IDs from the failed tool calls
• Screenshots of the errors when tool calls fail
• A specific prompt you used when trying to remove a TODO item

Workarounds for now:

• Save the plan to the workspace .cursor/plans/ and edit the markdown file directly
• Start a fresh plan when refinements are needed

I’ll pass this to the team.

[jrista (Jon)]

I don’t know if I can supply the request ids. We recently had a note come down that we were all required to keep all security measures on maximum, so we all have privacy enabled. I assume with privacy enabled, the request ids won’t be of any help to you?

[deanrie]

Thanks for the update. With Privacy Mode enabled, Request IDs aren’t available, but you can still help with debugging:

You can share:

• Screenshots of tool call errors when they appear
• The exact prompts you used to remove TODO items (copy/paste the text)
• Console errors (if any) - open Help → Toggle Developer Tools → Console tab

Even without Request IDs, these details will help the team investigate the UI sync issue you found.

Let us know if you can share any of those additional details.

[jrista (Jon)]

Sure thing. I had to switch tasks yesterday as a few critical things came up. I should, I hope, be able to get back to planning this afternoon. Will capture everything I can and post here.

[jrista (Jon)]

@deanrie Yo mentioned storing plans in the workspace. This was one of the issues I ran into yesterday, when I considered trying to manually change the plan. I could not actually find the plan details anywhere, and querying the agent, it said it thought the plans were stored internally in Cursor somewhere, but not actually on disk anywhere.

Is there a way to force the agent to write the plan to disk in .cursor/plans? The agent seemed to be unable to save the plan out as the original plan, with the todo list and all. It did eventually write the textual content of the plan out, but it didn’t write out things like the todo list (even though that todo list showed up in the original plan that was stored in cursor internally.)

I searched around settings to see if there were any related to plans, and did not find any. If there is an official way to do this, I’ll try it and see if it works,.