Projects: Keep Switching from Grok 4.6 to Sonnet 5

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE (The glass interface)

Describe the Bug

I’ve been running the new Projects feature and overall a great experience. However, since my month rolled over and I now have “Other Model” usage free, the project model which is Grok 4.6 High Fast has been automatically switching to Sonnet 5 High. I have this model explicitly disabled because it is unreliable garbage. But every time I send a message and come back about 15 minutes later, it has switched back to Sonnet 5. Additionally, the sub-agent spawns do not respect the disabled models list. I would literally choose ANY MODEL over Sonnet 5. This makes usage tracking super unreliable and the whole feature then becomes a problem.

Steps to Reproduce

Start a project with usage on a 20, 60, or 200 dollar plan. Select Grok 4.6 High Fast. Send it to do some work that requires it to spawn a subagent. Come back in 10 minutes or so. It has switched your main model to Sonnet 5.

Expected Behavior

It does not change the model I’m using for any reason.

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.21.9 (Universal)
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 9998796a6096ce83d83a9332bfe7473b985db750
Date: 2026-09-17T02:16:48.732Z
Layout: Agent Window
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 42.10.0
Chromium: 148.0.7778.280
Node.js: 24.18.1
V8: 14.8.178.38-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.291
OS: Darwin arm64 27.0.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

7

Hey @Jason_Holt,

Your Project stayed on Grok 4.6. The Sonnet 5 usage is coming from the worker agents it spins up, which are currently picking their own model instead of inheriting the Project’s. Turning models off in Settings → Models only filters the picker in the app, it doesn’t stop cloud workers from starting on them, which is why a disabled model still shows up.

This isn’t anything in your setup and it’s not intended behavior. We’ve let the team know and it’s an issue we’re tracking. No timeline yet, but I’ll post here when there’s an update.

What helps now: add a line to the Project’s prompt or rules like “Start every worker on the same model as this Project (Grok 4.6 High Fast) and never pick a different model unless I explicitly ask.” It’s guidance rather than a hard setting, but it makes a real difference.

Same thing is tracked here if you want to follow along: Cursor Projects agent used an unauthorized model. If you’d like us to review the usage those workers ran up, email [email protected] and mention this thread.