Toggle (or allowlist) for Agent Skills roots — stop loading ~/.claude/skills and ~/.codex/skills when I only want .cursor / .agents

[jubi (Justin Bishop)]

Feature request for product/service

Cursor CLI

Describe the request

I use Claude Code and Codex with skills stored under the standard compatibility paths (~/.claude/skills/, ~/.codex/skills/, and project .claude/skills/ /
.codex/skills/). I want to keep those directories for those tools.

Separately, I maintain Cursor-specific skills under ~/.cursor/skills/ and ~/.agents/skills/ (and project .cursor/skills/ / .agents/skills/).

Problem: Cursor’s docs say that for compatibility it also loads skills from the Claude and Codex directories. I don’t want Cursor’s Agent to discover or surface
skills from those compatibility paths at all—I want Cursor to only use the .cursor / .agents skill roots unless I opt in.

Requested behavior: A setting (names are illustrative) such as:

• “Load Claude/Codex compatibility skill directories” — default on for backward compatibility, off for users who want isolation; or
• cursor.agentSkills.roots allowlist / cursor.agentSkills.excludeRoots blocklist for filesystem roots.

Why this matters:

• Avoids duplicate or conflicting guidance when the same workflows exist for different ecosystems.
• Keeps Cursor’s Agent context focused on Cursor-native skills I intentionally placed under .cursor / .agents.
• Lets me share one machine with multiple agent CLIs without merging their skill namespaces.

Related: This overlaps with broader “too many skills loaded / duplication” concerns—for example: Critical Issue: Duplicate Skills Loading Causing Context Window
Waste and Confusion (Critical Issue: Duplicate Skills Loading Causing Context Window Waste and Confusion).

Docs reference: Agent Skills — Skill directories (Agent Skills | Cursor Docs) (compatibility loading from Claude and Codex paths).

Thanks for considering this—happy to beta-test or clarify expected UX (Settings → Rules vs JSON).

Operating System (if it applies)

MacOS

[eli.wavv (Eli Smith)]

Please add this. Right now, even with only a couple of plugins installed, my agent has 50+ skills available. That is far more than I want and adds a lot of unnecessary prompt/context bloat.

A concrete example: I have the Sentry plugin installed, but I only need it for a few specific MCP tools exposed by the MCP server it configures. I do not need the skills it exports, and I already instruct my agent directly in my own prompts when I want it to use those MCP tools.

Currently, just having the Sentry plugin installed seems to automatically add around 30 skills, with no obvious way to disable them in Cursor settings. A per-plugin skills toggle, allowlist, or global “only enable selected skills” option would be very useful.

[kevinn (Kevin Neilson)]

Hi @here

@jubi

I don’t want Cursor’s Agent to discover or surface
skills from those compatibility paths at all—I want Cursor to only use the .cursor / .agents skill roots unless I opt in.

You can disable this today! Head to Cursor Settings and go to Rule, Skills and Subagents. Then toggle this off: