Subagent unable to use web fetch and search

Support Bug Reports
1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Hello, subagents (both custom and prebuilt) failed to use web fetch and search. All the related settings are enabled. Curl failed on custom subagent because its readonly.

Note: During these conversations the Privacy mode was enabled. I have switched it off now.

Error report from the Agent

  • Failing subagent: type researcher, agent ID 84588ee1-0a9c-453a-8acb-ff782b79d15c. It ran at 23:03 and again at 23:28 on Oct 5, 2026 (UTC+8).
  • Parent conversation ID: 34fcef77-a2a8-421c-b028-2a975516eabc.
  • Errors, verbatim:
    • Web fetch: Web fetch rejected: Interaction not available to subagent
    • Web search: Web search rejected: Interaction not available to subagent
    • Shell, curl and git clone: You are in ask mode and cannot run non read-only tools. Ask the user to switch to agent mode if edits are required.
    • Tool lookup: namespace "cursor" not found. Available namespaces: cursor-app-control, cursor-ide-browser, cursor-origin, cursor-subscriptions
  • Comparison run: the general-purpose subagent (e398d781-bd3d-48ab-8c45-bb8beec2222c, 23:30) got the same web fetch and web search rejections. Its curl with full network access worked. So the web tools fail for both subagent types, and the researcher type is also blocked from running commands.

Steps to Reproduce

Not sure, the behaviour seems inconsistent. I reported the same issue before as well but it worked after some time so I closed that ticket. Subagents should have access to web

Expected Behavior

Subagents should be able to fetch docs from web

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 9.44.44 AM.png
Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 9.44.44 AM.png1368Ă—1150 64.9 KB

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 3.23.12
VS Code Extension API: 1.128.0
Commit: 2d29876d567da1607532b23bbf2cd5ddbca496f0
Date: 2026-10-01T04:41:16.627Z
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 25.6.0

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Opus (Very High) for parent and general subagent, Grok 4.7 (very high, fast) for researcher subagent

For AI issues: add Request ID with privacy disabled

Subagent run Agent ID Request ID Time (UTC+8)
Researcher, first Forge attempt 84588ee1-0a9c-453a-8acb-ff782b79d15c c6ffb15d-8621-407e-ad01-09b29c43b5ff Oct 5, 23:03
Researcher, Forge retry (same subagent, resumed) 84588ee1-0a9c-453a-8acb-ff782b79d15c a035d760-a4f0-4f9f-9dcd-17f366cab92f Oct 5, 23:28
Researcher, second retry 5aac8b83-8f5f-4f5f-a7a8-b76894ba2dc0 4a44929f-c05e-4dda-a834-318109d14c66 Oct 6, 09:39
General-purpose Forge fetch e398d781-bd3d-48ab-8c45-bb8beec2222c 69d4ca27-e12f-4a38-80b3-6ecd681fcae7 Oct 5, 23:30

Cursor’s local database (state.vscdb) stores a requestId on each subagent’s messages. I’m assuming this is the same as what I get with “copy request id”.

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 9.43.52 AM
Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 9.43.52 AM1324Ă—1396 140 KB

6

Hey @Milind,
Subagents getting “Interaction not available to subagent” on web search and web fetch isn’t intended behavior, and it’s an issue we’re tracking. Privacy Mode isn’t a factor here either, so feel free to switch it back on.

In the meantime, two things should keep you moving:

  1. Have the main agent do the web lookups. Web search and web fetch still work in the main chat, so you can ask it to fetch the docs first and pass what it finds to the subagent in its prompt.
  2. The curl and git clone failures in your researcher subagent are a separate thing: readonly: true limits it to read-only tools, which blocks network shell commands. Removing that line (or setting it to false, see Subagents) lets it use curl the way your general-purpose subagent did. Sites that block curl will still fail that way, so option 1 is the more reliable route.

If web search or fetch also fails in the main chat, send over a request ID from that chat and I’ll take a look.

I’ll post here when there’s an update.

7

This should be fixed now! Thanks for reporting.

8

Awesome guys :smiley: , thanks for the prompt resolution.