The Open IDE action is not working as expected when having multiple cursor instances open

Describe the Bug

The Open IDE action is not working as expected when having multiple cursor instance open. only the first instance opens the IDE as expected. Please see steps to reproduce

To the Cursor team, please make big changes opt in instead of forced. I want vs code + AI features. We do not use and don’t plan to use the agent ecosystem UX just yet, why are we constantly being forced to see this. Every time you do this you waste time on our team trying to figure out how to go back to our setup. Thanks.

Steps to Reproduce

Have multiple Cursor opens

  1. open IDE in one cursor (let’s call it Cursor instance A)
  2. In instance A, Click file → Open IDE. it works as expected
  3. open another cursor (Let’s call it Cursor instance B)
  4. in instance B, click file → open IDE. instead of opening the IDE for instance be, it goes to instance A and opens the IDE for instance A again instead of opening a new IDE for instance B

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version: 3.10.20 (user setup)
VS Code Extension API: 1.125.0
Commit: 23b9fb205fe595ea2be29da7214e19762d037fc0
Date: 2026-07-07T07:03:33.071Z
Layout: IDE
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Nightly
Electron: 40.10.3
Chromium: 144.0.7559.236
Node.js: 24.15.0
V8: 14.4.258.32-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.256
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

Hey, thanks for the detailed repro. This is a known bug on our side. The Open IDE command currently focuses the first editor window in the whole process and ignores which instance it was called from, so if you have two Cursor windows open, calling it from instance B jumps to the IDE in instance A. We’re tracking the issue, but I can’t share a fix timeline yet.

Workaround: open the Editor Window / IDE first, then open the project inside it. In this case it will reuse and focus the correct window.

About forcing the Agents Window: you can turn it off in Settings > General > Startup > Open Agents Window on Startup > Off. This setting sometimes doesn’t apply if the last active window before quitting wasn’t the Editor Window, so before fully closing Cursor, make sure the Editor Window is focused.

Let me know if the workaround doesn’t help or if the behavior is different.

Thanks I just asked the composer agent to make the changes to disable the agent mode for now and it did it.

Hey @mehdi. We’ve made changes in this area. Can you update to the latest version and check again?

Quick check:

  • Open two Cursor windows with different projects
  • In the second window, click File → Open IDE
  • Now it should open or focus the editor for that window’s project, instead of jumping to the first one

Let me know if Open IDE still takes you to the wrong window, then we’ll dig deeper.

And thanks for closing out the agent mode issue via Settings, glad that worked.