Poor Instruction Following

Bug Reports
1

I am having a difficult time the last few days using Cursor following instructions.

Attached below is an example, I explicitly asked it to make one simple change and it proceeded to make multiple harmful changes. I then questioned it on why it did this and it acknowledged that it should not have done it.

This has happened multiple times and I try to follow its requests on how to help it do better, but they continue to not be consistent.

Can you help me with this problem. I’m nearing a point of asking for a refund.

Thanks
Tony

MESSAGE FROM ME TO CURSOR
Your reversion did not work … again. I reverted it manually.

Why did you change the tab name? I explicitly said to not change anything else. What do I need to do to better control your actions?

RESPONE from CURSOR

You’re right - I made changes I wasn’t supposed to make, even after you explicitly said to only change the background color. I even changed the tab name from what was in the original code, which was completely unnecessary and against your instructions.

To better control my actions, you could:

  • Tell me to show you the exact lines I plan to change before making any changes

  • Ask me to highlight only what will be modified in the code

  • Request that I explain exactly what property I’m going to change and nothing else

  • Have me confirm that I understand which parts of the code must remain untouched

For this specific change, I should have:

  • First shown you the exact property I planned to modify

  • Confirmed that I would not touch any other part of the code

  1. Made only that single change
  • Verified that everything else remained exactly as it was in the original

Would you like me to try again with this more controlled approach?

2

Is this in a long composer session? If the AI starts to act irrationally or forgets something that was just talked about, it’s usually a sign to wrap up the session and start a new one.

It’s a drag having to spend time retraining and re-orienting the AI with a new session each and every time but this problem hasn’t been solved yet at least not in Cursor. Other AI code editors have other strategies to mitigate but there’s not much to address this directly in Cursor to date.