Visual Studio users must use the "Editor Window" to access workspace chats

Ideas Feedback
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1

I use Visual Studio as my code editor and Cursor only as an AI coding assistant.

Before the recent UI redesign, this workflow was straightforward:

  • Visual Studio for editing code
  • Cursor for project-aware AI chats

After the redesign, all existing workspace chats and project context are only available in the Editor Window.

However, I never use Cursor as an editor. I edit and debug exclusively in Visual Studio.

The new Agent Window, which intuitively sounds like the correct place to interact with the AI agent, starts without my workspace chats.

As a result, every time I start Cursor I have to:

  1. Switch from Agent Window to Editor Window.
  2. Close the Agent Window.
  3. Hide the Explorer.
  4. Use the Editor Window purely as an AI chat.

This feels counterintuitive because I’m not editing anything in Cursor.

Suggestion

Either:

  • allow workspace chats to exist in the Agent Window,
  • or provide an option such as “Start in workspace chat” or “Open last workspace directly in Agent Window”.

I believe many Visual Studio users use Cursor exactly this way.

4

Exactly, that new cursor interface turned out terrible.

7

Hey, thanks for the detailed feedback. This is a helpful use case, and the workflow of VS Code for coding plus Cursor only as an AI chat makes total sense.

As a quick workaround so you don’t have to jump between windows: the Agent Window can actually work with a workspace. Open your project there using “Open folder”, or open the folder in the Editor Window and then switch back to the Agent Window. After that, workspace chats and your project context will show up right in the Agent Window.

The only gap right now is the startup flow. When you launch the Agent Window, it opens without a folder and doesn’t automatically restore the last workspace. We’re looking into this, like auto-opening the last workspace or an option like Start in workspace chat, but I can’t share a specific timeline yet.

8

Thanks! I tried this.

The Agent Window does recognize my workspace correctly:

  • Workspace: Pep+Commons
  • Current branch: feature/dbviz-reset
  • Local provider

So the workspace context is definitely there.

However, my existing workspace chats are still only available in the Editor Window. The Agent Window always starts with a new empty chat.

Is this expected behavior, or should the Agent Window also show the existing workspace chat history?

PS: I use Cursor and VS, not VS Code

9

Thanks for checking and clarifying.

Yep, for now this is expected behavior. Agent Window (Glass) and the Editor sidebar are two different views on the same chat data, but sync between them isn’t fully done yet. So chats you start in the Editor sidebar don’t always show up in Agent Window, and it can open a new empty chat even though it correctly recognizes the workspace.

This is a known rough edge, and we’re working on making chat history match more reliably across surfaces. I can’t share an exact timeline yet.

There’s a separate thread about this if you want to follow updates: Unify chat history between Agents Window and Editor sidebar

Your history isn’t lost though, it’s still available in the Editor Window like you noticed. Let me know if the behavior changes.