Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?
Cursor IDE
Describe the Bug
When workbench.activityBar.orientation is set to “vertical”, a small white rectangle appears at the bottom-left corner of the window, where the activity bar column meets the status bar. This does not happen in VS Code with the same setting.
The root cause appears to be that Cursor’s CSS sets .monaco-workbench { background-color: transparent !important }, which exposes the default white background through a gap in the layout grid that is not covered by any UI part (activity bar, sidebar, or status bar).
Steps to Reproduce
Open Settings (JSON) and add “workbench.activityBar.orientation”: “vertical”
Restart Cursor
Look at the bottom-left corner of the window, below the gear/account icons on the activity bar
Expected Behavior
The corner where the activity bar meets the status bar should be filled with the theme’s background color (matching the activity bar or status bar), as it does in VS Code with the same setting. Instead, a small white rectangle is visible regardless of which theme is active.
Screenshots / Screen Recordings
Operating System
MacOS
Version Information
Version: 2.6.20 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: b29eb4ee5f9f6d1cb2afbc09070198d3ea6ad760
Date: 2026-03-17T01:50:02.404Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 25.3.0
Additional Information
The root cause appears to be in Cursor’s CSS: .monaco-workbench { background-color: transparent !important }. This rule makes the workbench background transparent, exposing the default white background through a gap in the layout grid at the intersection of the activity bar column and the status bar row. VS Code does not have this rule, so the issue does not occur there. The white block persists across all light themes tested (Solarized Light, Terracotta Cream).
Does this stop you from using Cursor
No - Cursor works, but with this issue