Prevent Code Changes Without Approval?

How To
1

I’m new to cursor, so this has probably been covered before, but searches haven’t turned up anything useful.

Do we have a way to prevent the agent from making changes that aren’t approved?

I love the power of this tool, but it quite often starts going berserk, making changes all over the place, in areas completely unrelated to the current request, breaking things as it goes.

Google says there’s a YOLO mode in the settings that can be disabled, but I don’t see that option anywhere.

I’ve set rules that explicitly state that it must submit it’s suggestions for review, and not make any changes without approval, yet it seems that I still have to remind it every 2-3 messages.

It’s getting tedious having to write Do not make any changes, just provide your suggestions" with every request.

2
  • Don’t use claude 4
  • Use Ask or manual mode
  • Switch off auto-run in Chat in Settings
3

in the chat switch from agent to manual or possibly create your own mode and edit it as needed

4

I’ve been having the same issue. I might write a routine on the side and get it the way I want, then add it to the project and tell cursor to use it for X. Then Cursor takes over and solves the problem a different way. So I asked Cursor how I could protect the code I introduce, and it added the following to my code (will see if it works):
/*

  • PROTECTED FILE - Do not modify without explicit permission
  • This PageTable implementation correctly parses tables in images
  • Any changes must be approved by the user
    */