Treat NTFS junctions / symlink targets as in-workspace, or let additionalReadwritePaths apply to the Write tool

Ideas Feature Requests
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Feature request for product/service

Cursor IDE

Describe the request

Problem

On Windows, my workspace folder d:\IdeaProjects\Workspace-1\docs is an NTFS junction to D:\IdeaProjects\shared-docs\Workspace.

Agent Write / StrReplace / Delete under docs/ always hits External File Protection and sits on “Pending approval” until I click Run. The path I am writing is inside the opened workspace, but Cursor treats the junction target as outside the workspace.

This is a common Windows setup: one shared docs directory linked into multiple project clones.

What I tried

  1. ~/.cursor/sandbox.json
{
  "type": "workspace_readwrite",
  "additionalReadwritePaths": [
    "D:\\IdeaProjects\\shared-docs\\Workspace",
    "D:\\IdeaProjects\\shared-docs"
  ]
}

This did not skip External File Protection on the Write tool. Restarting Cursor did not change the result.

  1. ~/.cursor/permissions.json
{
  "autoRun": {
    "allow_instructions": [
      "Allow creating and editing files under D:\\IdeaProjects\\shared-docs\\Workspace and the workspace docs junction without prompting."
    ]
  }
}

This also did not skip the Write-tool prompt. I confirmed after a full Cursor restart: Write to the junction still required approval. Shell Set-Content to the same path succeeded because it already matched my terminal allowlist.

Unknown keys such as putting additionalReadwritePaths inside permissions.json were ignored, as documented.

Workaround that works: File → Add Folder to Workspace and add the real target D:\IdeaProjects\shared-docs\Workspace, then save as a multi-root workspace. That is extra setup for every clone.

Request

Please treat junction / symlink targets as in-workspace when the link path is already inside the workspace.

Alternatively, make sandbox.json additionalReadwritePaths (or a dedicated allowlist) apply to the Write / StrReplace / Delete tools, not only sandboxed terminal commands, so we can whitelist the real target once.

Why it matters

  • Shared docs via NTFS junction is a normal Windows workflow.
  • Every agent write under that folder currently requires a manual click.
  • The current workaround (multi-root workspace) is easy to forget and does not scale across many clones.

Environment

  • OS: Windows 10
  • Workspace: d:\IdeaProjects\workspace1
  • Junction: docs → D:\IdeaProjects\shared-docs\Workspace

Operating System (if it applies)

Windows 10/11