Subagents not working in Cursor CLI

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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor CLI

Describe the Bug

I’m so excited for subagents! But it looks like they aren’t working in Cursor CLI.

I have no problem in the IDE.

According to the docs Cursor CLI should support this:

I made sure my Cursor CLI is up-to-date (as of Feb. 6).

I created a agent file in .cursor/agents/ and like I said it works in the IDE. But when. I use the same prompt in Cursor CLI it does not use the subagent. When I ask it says it does not have the tools to create a subagent.

I understand you want me to use the type-analyzer subagent, but I don't have a tool available to invoke
  subagents.
  Looking at the documentation you provided, it states that "Agent includes all custom subagents in its available
  tools," but when I check my available tools, I don't see any subagent invocation mechanism or a tool for the
  type-analyzer subagent you've defined.
  My available tools are:
  • Shell, Glob, Grep, Read, Delete, StrReplace, Write
  • EditNotebook, TodoWrite, SemanticSearch, WebFetch
  • ListMcpResources, FetchMcpResource

  The Cursor documentation suggests subagents should be automatically available, but they're not appearing in my
  tool set. This might be:
  1. A limitation of the current Cursor Agent version
  2. A configuration issue with how subagents are exposed to the agent
  3. Requires a specific Cursor version or setting

  I cannot invoke the type-analyzer subagent because I don't have the tool to do so. Would you like me to continue
  providing the type analysis manually using the methodology defined in your type-analyzer subagent, or would you
  prefer to investigate why the subagent isn't available to me?

In both the IDE and CLI I am using Sonnet 4.5 (thinking)

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a new agent file via /create-skill command in the IDE
  2. Run a prompt in the IDE, instruction the agent to invoke the new subagent (works)
  3. Start Cursor CLI cursor-agent or agent
  4. Run the same prompt as step 2 (just uses grep etc… tools to complete the task)

Expected Behavior

My subagent is used

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

2026.01.28-fd13201

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Claude 4.5 Sonnet (Thinking)

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Sometimes - I can sometimes use Cursor

6 Likes
Subagent Delegation Not Working in Cloud Agents
Sub-Agents in Cursor-CLI
3

Hey, thanks for the report. You set everything up correctly, subagents should work in the CLI per the docs.

It looks like the Task tool for delegating to subagents isn’t fully integrated into the CLI yet. There’s a similar bug with skills not auto-triggering in the CLI either: Skills do not auto-trigger via natural language.

I’ll let you know if there’s an update on this.

2 Likes
6

Hey Dean, just following up on this. I’m still stuck on getting subagents to work with the Cursor CLI - has there been any movement or a potential workaround?

7

I’m experiencing the same issue. Sub-agents cannot be invoked with slash commands in the Cursor CLI.

My setup:
Version: 2.5.17
VSCode Version: 1.105.1

8

Hi

just to support the feature request. I encountered today the same limitation and found this bug report. From our workflows this feature gap significantly limits our ability to integrate cursor‑agent into CI/CD pipelines for structured tasks like adjusting bug and vulnerability findings with dedicated subagents. Proper subagent support in the CLI would bring a huge speed and quality improvement to our workflows

9

Hi!

+1 for this issue

Not being able to use subagents in CLI prevents me from using them as I’d like to.

I guess the docs state that CLI supports subagents because it has a /create-subagent command but this confuses everyone who reads this.

Please make subagents support in CLI

1 Like
10

Hi!

+1 for this issue. I realize I’m tracking a similar issue (Sub-Agents in Cursor-CLI - Discussions - Cursor - Community Forum) as well. A sub-agent in the CLI aligning with the experience in the chat interface would be essential!

12

Hey there!

This should be working now. Please give it a try!

2 Likes