Markdown Build Plan Inconsistent Edit/Preview Mode

Support Help
1

I have a Plan that I’ve asked the agent to create, and it did create the plan file. I’ve noticed sometimes, though, that it stores it in 2 different locations, and I have issues with it depending on the location.

From what I can tell, sometimes it places things here:

/Plans/

and other times it stores it here:

.cursor/Plans/

When the markdown file gets created in /Plans, it shows up as Markdown in Preview/View mode and has a nice To-Do list and a Build button. I can easily read it ask the agent to updates it plan as needed before hitting Build and following along with it.

If it creates the markdown file in .cursor/Plans, I can still view the plan, but the markdown file is stuck in Edit mode, and I’ve not found a way to switch it to Preview mode. Also, the “Build” button does not appear, and I can’t follow along with the progress.

I’ve tried using the Hotkeys/Keyboard shortcuts to no avail. I’ve also tried clicking every ellipses “…” I can find in and around the file to try to manipulate the markdown file to go into Preview mode. Nothing seems to work.

It’s probably a user ID10T error, but…can someone help me out with this? When I instruct the agent to build a plan (even if I’m not in plan mode), I suspect it will change to Plan mode intuitively and build the plan.

My only workaround with the .cursor/Plans markdown file has been created is basically to switch to Plan mode and ask it to re-create the plan.

Regardless, it’d be nice to be able to switch ANY markdown file between Preview and Edit mode. Hopefully this word vomit makes sense. Cheers.

Cursor details:
Version: 3.1.15 (user setup)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 3a67af7b780e0bfc8d32aefa96b8ff1cb8817f80
Date: 2026-04-15T01:46:06.515Z
Layout: glass
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

2026-04-17 10_20_32-Greenshot
2026-04-17 10_20_32-Greenshot1618×243 18.6 KB

4

@Jeff_Givens I discovered a workaround. To open the plan in Preview mode, right-click on the plan from the file explorer, select “add to chat,” and then click the pill in the chat input box.

7

Hi @Jeff_Givens,

Not a user error at all. This is a known limitation of how plans work in Cursor right now.

When a plan is created through the plan mode workflow, Cursor registers it in an internal plan tracker. That tracker is what powers the Preview rendering, the to-do checklist, and the Build button. If the agent creates a .plan.md file directly (without going through the plan registration), Cursor treats it as a regular markdown file, which is why you end up in Edit mode with no Build button.

The two-location inconsistency is a symptom of this: sometimes the agent properly goes through the plan creation workflow, and other times it writes the file directly.

As @kingitaj mentioned above, one workaround is to right-click the plan in the file explorer, select “Add to chat,” and click the pill in the chat input box to open it in Preview mode.

For the most consistent results: make sure you’re in Plan mode before asking the agent to create the plan. This ensures it goes through the proper workflow and registers correctly. If you ask for a plan while in Agent mode, the agent may just write a markdown file without the registration step.

A few other users have run into related plan behavior in this thread, which has more context on how plan metadata works.