Cursor Delegate
You are the orchestrator. Hand a bounded coding task to a separate implementer — the Cursor
Agent CLI — then review what it produced and land it yourself. You write the brief and own the
judgment; Cursor does the typing in its own session; you verify and commit.
The loop needs only a shell command and file access, so any comparable orchestrator can drive it.
When NOT to use this
- The task is small enough to do inline; delegation overhead is not worth it.
- The
cursor-agent CLI is not installed or authenticated (run cursor-agent login).
- You want to write the code yourself, or you only need Cursor's opinion on code you wrote (a
--read-only dispatch covers that — see below — but a plain review may not need delegation at all).
Prerequisites (check once)
cursor-agent --version succeeds. If not, follow the installer for your platform at
cursor.com/cli, inspect what it will run, and authenticate with
cursor-agent login.cursor-agent status shows you logged in.- You are in (or will point
--cd at) the target git repository. The relay passes --trust, so
point it only at repositories you trust.
Choose the model
Omitting --model uses your Cursor default (usually auto — Cursor picks). To pin one, pass
--model <name> with a name from the account's live cursor-agent models output — select from that
list rather than inventing a name. Parameterized forms like <name>[context=1m,effort=high] are
forwarded as-is. The model that actually served the run is recorded as resolvedModel in
result.json.
The loop
Run these five steps per task. Steps 1, 4, and 5 require judgment; 2 and 3 are mechanical.
1. Write the brief
Cursor sees only the text you send plus what it can inspect in the workspace — no chat history or
shared context. Include the goal, current state, what to change, what to leave untouched, the
project's actual gates, and a report contract. Tell Cursor not to commit. Keep one task per
brief. See references/writing-the-brief.md.
2. Dispatch
Use the bundled helper. It wraps cursor-agent -p, feeds the brief on stdin, captures the
structured event stream, and writes result.json. (<skill-dir> is the installed folder containing
this SKILL.md.)
node "<skill-dir>/scripts/relay.mjs" --brief brief.txt --cd /path/to/repo
# read-only (plan mode — review/diagnosis, no edits): add --read-only
# write-capable without automatic command approval: add --no-force
# explicitly override Cursor's sandbox for this run: add --sandbox enabled|disabled
# pin a model from `cursor-agent models`: add --model <name>
# resume the most recent session: add --resume-last (delta brief only)
# resume a specific session: add --session <id> (delta brief only)
# hard time limit (watchdog): add --timeout 2h (the 30m default suits short runs; implementation briefs routinely need 1-2h)
# see all options: node .../relay.mjs --help
The child process's cwd pins the workspace. On Cursor 2026.07.23 or newer, use repeatable
--add-dir flags only for extra workspace directories. The relay writes artifacts under the system
temp dir by default and never commits. See
references/dispatch-and-poll.md.
3. Wait for completion
The helper blocks until Cursor finishes. Run it with the orchestrator's background-command facility,
or background it in the shell and poll for result.json. A pre-run usage error exits 2 and writes no
result; a missing cursor-agent exits 127 and writes status: "cursor_agent_unavailable".
Trust process state and the working tree over a progress display. Completion means the process exited
and result.json exists. Cursor's full report is the finalMessage field in result.json (also
printed in full on stdout between the report markers).
Windows + hooks caveat: if the user has Cursor hooks configured (~/.cursor/hooks.json, or
Claude Code PreToolUse hooks, which cursor-agent imports), dispatching from a Git Bash (MSYS)
console makes cursor-agent feed PowerShell-syntax hook wrappers to bash, so every command Cursor
tries to run is blocked — edits still land, gates do not run. Dispatch from a PowerShell or cmd
console instead. Details: references/dispatch-and-poll.md.
4. Review — do not trust the self-report
Treat Cursor's final message and gate claims as claims:
- Re-run the project's gates yourself.
- Read the diff against the brief, starting with
touchedFiles.
- Run relevant guard skills if installed.
- Round-trip migrations and grep for dangling references after removals or renames.
See references/review-and-land.md.
5. Land it
The implementer edits the working tree; the orchestrator commits. Commit only after the gates
pass and the diff holds. If rework is needed, send a delta brief with --resume-last or
--session <id>, then review again.
Autonomy and permissions
A fresh run defaults to write-capable with --force: Cursor runs commands without approval
unless your Cursor config explicitly denies them, so ordinary gates (tests, linters, builds) run
headlessly. --no-force keeps the run write-capable but withholds automatic command approval;
commands that require approval are refused because a headless run cannot prompt. --read-only
switches to Cursor's plan mode (read-only analysis, no edits, no --force). The relay always
passes --trust to keep headless runs from stalling on the workspace-trust prompt, which is why
--cd must only ever point at repositories you trust. Pass --sandbox enabled or --sandbox disabled only when you need to override Cursor's sandbox for that dispatch. The requested value is
recorded as sandbox in result.json; it does not claim what Cursor actually applied. The permission
mode Cursor reports is recorded as permissionMode; inspect touchedFiles and the diff after every
run.
Read-only second opinions
--read-only doubles as a clean way to get an adversarial second opinion with no write risk:
dispatch a brief that lists the agreed points, then each contested point with both positions, and ask
Cursor to defend or concede each — deliverable in its final message, touching no files.
Authorization model
Delegation is something the human opts into. Once they have ("run this queue", "proceed"), committing
verified, gate-passing work is the agreed contract. Two limits remain: surface, don't absorb
(report Cursor's design decisions, defensible-but-unasked turns, and non-blocking nitpicks) and
stop for scope changes (if correct completion needs going beyond the brief, ask instead of
expanding the mandate). See references/review-and-land.md.
References
- references/writing-the-brief.md — structure, report contract,
real gates, and delta briefs.
- references/dispatch-and-poll.md — flags, artifacts,
result.json, polling, and failure recovery.
- references/review-and-land.md — review checklist, commit boundary,
and rework through Cursor sessions.
- references/multi-task-queues.md — sequential queues, constraint
carry-forward, progress tracking, and the final coherence pass.