Unable to get GPT-5 to create TO-DO lists

[capeflow (Flo)]

Describe the Bug

I have been unable to get GPT-5 to create To-Do lists, regardless of how explicitly I prompt in Agent mode.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Select GPT-5 or GPT-5 Max in Agent Mode
2. Ask to implement code, specifically prompting to make use of the To-Do list feature

Expected Behavior

Agent uses To-Do list feature

Operating System

MacOS

Current Cursor Version (Menu → About Cursor → Copy)

Version: 1.4.2 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.99.3
Commit: 07aa3b4519da4feab4761c58da3eeedd253a1670
Date: 2025-08-06T19:23:39.081Z
Electron: 34.5.1
Chromium: 132.0.6834.210
Node.js: 20.19.0
V8: 13.2.152.41-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.5.0

Additional Information

I have seen demos where this does work, so it must be a somewhat isolated issue?

[deanrie]

Hey, thanks for the report. We’ll work on improving this model’s performance soon.

[capeflow (Flo)]

Thanks, here some more visual context.

It reverts to mentioning To-Do lists within the written responses and seems completely unaware of the feature.

[vargascarlitos]

I’ll confirm. I’ve tried many prompts. For now, I’ve enabled a ‘to-do/’ folder in my project where I ask gpt-5 to create the todo list or the plan to execute in Markdown format, and I’m having good results.

I hope that helps for now.

[Rob_Wheatley]

Going to add a “Me too” to this.

I’ve tried loads of ways to get the todos to work, but I can’t. It had been driving me mad, so I just took to google to see what I was doing wrong - this was the first thing google found

[Steven_Kordik]

GPT-5 doesn’t have a todo tool. As far as I know, only the Claude models do.

Here are the GPT-5 tools:

Here are the tools I can use in this workspace:

• Code exploration

• functions.codebase_search: Semantic search across the codebase

• functions.grep: Exact text/regex search (ripgrep)

• functions.read_file: Read file contents

• functions.list_dir: List directory contents

• functions.glob_file_search: Find files by glob

• Editing

• functions.apply_patch: Make precise file edits via diffs

• functions.edit_file: Fallback file editor (direct edit blocks)

• functions.delete_file: Delete files

• functions.edit_notebook: Edit Jupyter notebooks

• Quality and diagrams

• functions.read_lints: Retrieve linter diagnostics

• functions.create_diagram: Render Mermaid diagrams

• Rules and repo metadata

• functions.fetch_rules: Load workspace “Cursor Rules”

• functions.fetch_pull_request: Fetch PRs/commits/refs

• Web and terminal

• functions.web_search: Search the web for up-to-date info

• functions.run_terminal_cmd: Propose/run shell commands (non-interactive)

• Orchestration

• multi_tool_use.parallel: Run multiple tool calls in parallel

Here are the Claude-4-sonnet tools:

Here are all the tools I have access to:

Code Exploration & Search:

• codebase_search - Semantic search that finds code by meaning

• grep - Exact text/regex search using ripgrep

• read_file - Read file contents

• list_dir - List directory contents

• glob_file_search - Find files matching glob patterns

Code Editing:

• search_replace - Exact string replacements in files

• MultiEdit - Multiple edits to a single file in one operation

• write - Write/overwrite files

• delete_file - Delete files

• edit_notebook - Edit Jupyter notebook cells

Development Tools:

• run_terminal_cmd - Propose and run terminal commands

• read_lints - Read linter errors from the workspace

Task Management:

• todo_write - Create and manage structured task lists (I do have a todo tool - it’s called todo_write, not tool_todo)

Documentation & Diagrams:

• create_diagram - Create Mermaid diagrams

• fetch_rules - Fetch workspace-specific cursor rules

External Resources:

• web_search - Search the web for real-time information

• fetch_pull_request - Look up pull requests, issues, commits by number/hash

The todo_write tool is particularly useful for planning and tracking complex multi-step tasks throughout our coding session.

[eli_liam (Eli)]

@Steven_Kordik

GPT-5 doesn’t have a todo tool

That can’t be the case, because I’ve had GPT-5 mark todo items off the todo list that I generated with Claude 4 Sonnet previously in the Cursor chat. There must be some level of todo access for that to happen, maybe it’s conditional upon there being an active todo list in the chat?

[rjc]

FYI GPT-5 just started creating to-dos for me today. First time I’ve seen them since it launched so I believe something must have been updated Anyone else?

[capeflow (Flo)]

yes I can confirm it just started working. good stuff

[ttrmb]

Yeah, finally!