Cursor AI occasionally generates meaningless files with reserved system names (e.g., “nul”) that cannot be deleted using standard methods. These files clutter the workspace and require special commands to remove. While this appears to originate from the underlying LLM models (particularly cloud-based ones), implementing validation at the Cursor level would prevent this issue.
Steps to Reproduce
On Win10, use Cursor AI with cloud-based LLM models
Request file generation or code operations through chat
Occasionally, a file named “nul” or similar reserved name appears in the workspace
Attempt to delete the file using normal methods (right-click delete, Del key, etc.)
Deletion fails due to reserved system name
Expected Behavior
Cursor should validate generated file names before creation
Reserved system names (NUL, CON, PRN, AUX, COM1-9, LPT1-9, etc.) should be blocked or automatically renamed
All generated files should be deletable through standard file operations
Thanks for the feedback. I’m pretty sure this isn’t caused by Cursor AI only, as it also happens when using the Claude model with Cline in VSCode. From a user experience perspective, I’d consider it a bug worth fixing. This issue doesn’t occur very often, but I’ll make sure to record it the next time it happens.
now I got the nul file again during a quite long AI feedback, when I see it unexpectedly, when the AI is still feeding back, then I force to interrupted it. The response id is: 96de49ac-22fc-42fb-853d-32fde6a458bc
