Large lint output causes repeated context summarization

Support Bug Reports
,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

If there are too many lints, Cursor adds all of them to the AI context. This fills the context window right away. Then Cursor summarizes the context, the AI reads the lints again, and the same thing repeats.

This used about 5% of my Ultra plan API usage in a few minutes.

Steps to Reproduce

Open a project with a lot of lint errors
Ask Cursor AI to look at or fix the errors
Cursor adds the lint text to the context
The context fills up
Cursor summarizes it
The AI reads the lints again
The loop repeats

Expected Behavior

I expect my context windows to to blow up instantly.

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

photo_2026-06-30_11-11-02.jpg
photo_2026-06-30_11-11-02.jpg395×356 22.7 KB

Operating System

Linux

Version Information

Version: 3.9.16
VS Code Extension API: 1.105.1
Commit: 042b3c1a4c53f2c3808067f519fbfc67b72cad80
Date: 2026-06-27T06:41:01.941Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 40.10.5
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.4.258.32-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.256
OS: Linux x64 7.0.14-arch1-1

For AI issues: which model did you use?

GPT-5.5 Extra High with 272k context window

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

5

Hey, thanks for the detailed report. There’s a real gap here: on this path, the linter output isn’t capped, so in a project with lots of lint errors it can fill the whole context window in one go. Then auto-summarization kicks in. It’s designed to turn on as the window gets close to full. After that, the model asks to read the lints again with the same set of errors, and that’s why you get the token-burning loop.

I’ve logged this on our side. I can’t share an ETA for a fix yet, but these workarounds should help a lot:

  • Narrow the request to specific files instead of fix all lints across the whole project.
  • Fix fewer diagnostics at a time, in smaller batches.
  • If it starts looping, start a fresh chat. Don’t keep going in a long thread since the context is already near the limit and summarization will trigger again.

Also, if your repo has lots of rules or large AGENTS.md files, they can bloat the context too. Check Context Explorer to see what’s taking up the window.

Let me know if the loop happens again after trying these steps.