Index Repositories for Instant Grep - .cursorignore regression

Support Bug Reports
,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

The docs state that you can override .gitignore and default ignore list exclusions with negations in .cursorignore. But when “Index Repositories for Instant Grep” is enabled, the negations in .cursorignore cannot override .gitignore exclusions. I have not tested overriding the default ignore list exclusions.

I was using this behaviour to leave certain specs, docs, etc. available for location/inclusion in context by the agent while not committing them to the project. The agent doesn’t always automatically fallback to searching with the shell, nor should it have to.

Steps to Reproduce

Have a .gitignore with:

testfile

a .cursorignore with:

!testfile

and “Index Repositories for Instant Grep” enabled. The agent can’t find testfile using the Grep or Glob tools.

Turn that setting off and reload the window. The agent is able to find testfile using the Grep/Glob tools.

Expected Behavior

Regardless of whether “Index Repositories for Instant Grep” is enabled or disabled, the agent must be able to find the negated exclusions (testfile above) using the Grep/Glob tools.

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.15.19
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: de07bee81cefe43461ebf4f40c3d2d78d15052a0
Date: 2026-08-11T05:22:54.627Z
Layout: IDE
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 40.10.3
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.4.258.32-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Darwin arm64 25.6.0

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Model name: Auto, Grok 4.6

Additional Information

This worked prior to the introduction of local indexing/replacement of server-side embeddings/indexing

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report. The repro steps really helped.

Confirmed: this isn’t intended behavior, and it’s not something in your config. The documented behavior for ! negations in .cursorignore works for the regular search path, but when “Index Repositories for Instant Grep” is enabled, the indexing path doesn’t respect it yet. That’s why turning the setting off fixes it. We’re tracking this issue. I can’t share an exact ETA yet, but I’ll reply here once there’s an update.

For now, your workaround is solid: turn off “Index Repositories for Instant Grep” and reload the window. As an alternative, if you don’t want to lose instant grep, you can add the folder you need as a separate workspace folder. Then its files are available to the agent directly.

Let me know if neither option works for your setup.

7

I can confirm that the issue is also present on the most recent Windows version:

Version: 3.16.29 (system setup)
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 6246455961129c32969845e00aa25d87ae926ec0
Date: 2026-08-18T01:26:26.285Z
Layout: IDE
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 40.10.3
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.4.258.32-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200