Linux AppImage: /usr/bin/cursor symlink points to Electron binary instead of CLI wrapper script

Support Bug Reports
, ,
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Using the AppImage version, when running cursor in the terminal it ignores some CLI flags and just opens a new window. For example:
cursor --help
cursor --version
cursor --telemetry

> cursor --version
[403431:0117/203926.426527:ERROR:electron/shell/common/node_bindings.cc:427] Most NODE_OPTIONs are not supported in packaged apps. See documentation for more details.
Gtk-Message: 20:39:27.320: Failed to load module "appmenu-gtk-module"
MESA-INTEL: warning: Performance support disabled, consider sysctl dev.i915.perf_stream_paranoid=0
>

You can ignore the warnings - they’re not a concern, although they don’t show up when invoking as shown below.

The same cli flags work fine when running like this:

> CURSOR_MOUNT_DIR=$(ls -d /tmp/.mount_Cursor* | head -n1)

> $CURSOR_MOUNT_DIR/usr/share/cursor/bin/cursor --version
2.3.40
230922a103262db3487b753c8d1e0a7111c2d780
x64

> $CURSOR_MOUNT_DIR/usr/share/cursor/bin/cursor --help   
Cursor 2.3.40

Usage: cursor [options][paths...]

To read from stdin, append '-' (e.g. 'ps aux | grep code | cursor -')

Options
  -d --diff <file> <file>                    Compare two files with each other.
  -m --merge <path1> <path2> <base> <result> Perform a three-way merge by provi

These still work:
cursor . - works (opens cwd)
cursor /path/to/file - opens the file
cursor --wait file.txt - still blocks
cursor --diff a.txt b.txt - works
cursor --disable-extensions - starts without extensions just fine

Root Cause (suggested by Opus 4.5):

Inside the mounted AppImage, the symlink at usr/bin/cursor points to the Electron binary instead of the CLI wrapper script:
Current: usr/bin/cursor → ../share/cursor/cursor (Electron binary)
Expected: usr/bin/cursor → ../share/cursor/bin/cursor (CLI wrapper script)

The Electron binary handles path arguments natively but doesn’t process CLI flags. The CLI wrapper script at bin/cursor sets ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 and invokes cli.js, which properly handles all flags.

Suggested fix:
Update the symlink target in AppImage packaging from ../share/cursor/cursor to ../share/cursor/bin/cursor.

Steps to Reproduce

Just run cursor --help or cursor --version on Linux (AppImage installation)

Expected Behavior

All cli flags should work

Operating System

Linux

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 2.3.41
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 2ca326e0d1ce10956aea33d54c0e2d8c13c58a30
Date: 2026-01-16T19:14:00.150Z
Electron: 37.7.0
Chromium: 138.0.7204.251
Node.js: 22.20.0
V8: 13.8.258.32-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 5.15.0-164-generic

Does this stop you from using Cursor

No - Cursor works, but with this issue

4

Hey, thanks for the detailed report and root cause analysis.

Looks like a regression. This issue was fixed before, but it seems to have come back in recent versions. I’ve passed it to the team along with your analysis about the Electron binary symlink being used instead of the CLI wrapper.

1 Like
6

Please consider using the .deb or .rpm versions of the installer, depending on your flavor of linux: Download · Cursor