Cursor: Cloud Agents and Cursor Harness Improvements
Cursor: Cloud Agents and Cursor Harness Improvements was released on .
Summary
Cursor agents can now work autonomously on your behalf, automatically picking up tasks from events like PRs and Slack messages, then driving them to completion without interruption. We've also added Custom Modes to keep agents laser-focused on specific skills, and Subagents ca...
Release Context
- This was the 23rd Cursor release of 2026 tracked by Havoptic.
- It shipped 2 days after Cursor: Origin Code Hosting (August 17, 2026).
Shipped around the same time
Within 3 days of this release, other AI coding tools also shipped:
- Claude Code v2.1.239 (August 21, 2026)
- Devin Desktop v3.8.20 (August 21, 2026)
- Antigravity CLI v1.1.17 (August 20, 2026)
- OpenAI Codex CLI rust-v0.149.0 (August 20, 2026)
- Claude Code v2.1.238 (August 20, 2026)
Compare Cursor
Release Notes
Cloud Agents and Cursor Harness Improvements
We're continuing to improve cloud agents and the Cursor harness so always-on agents can operate as a system, building and shipping software on their own without the need for intervention at each loop.
With this release, cloud agents can automatically pick up work in response to events, hold a goal until it's met, and stay on course through long-running sessions.
Subscriptions
Cursor can now monitor your PRs, watch a Slack thread, or run scheduled tasks. Cursor Agent subscribes to an event source (a thread or conversation) and wakes when something happens. Subscriptions are available for cloud agents only, for now.
Cloud agents automatically subscribe to PRs they create and drive them to completion, fixing CI and addressing bot comments. In Slack, ask @cursor check back in an hour and keep going until that feedback is in.
Custom modes
Use any skill as a Custom Mode: a skill that stays pinned in the chat. Custom modes keep agents focused on a skill - you can think about it like "always on" skills.
From /, pick a skill and press ⌥⏎ (Mac) or Alt+Enter (Windows), or choose Use as Mode.
Subagents on their own machines
Subagents can now run on their own virtual machines. Each gets an isolated copy of the project with clean context in its own cloud environment.
Have subagents test the parent agent's changes in fresh environments or swarm independent fixes without collisions. Try run a swarm of subagents to test my app for bugs, each in its own environment.
/goal
Use /goal to give the agent a long-lived objective to work towards until it's fully complete.
Try /goal fix all flaky tests and make CI green in a new chat. Pair it with a custom mode to follow a playbook, or /loop for recurring check-ins.
Steering improvements
You can now send a message to steer the agent while it's working without interruption. Follow-ups wait for the next tool call instead of cutting the agent off mid-action.
Type a follow-up and hit Send now, or press ⏎ twice.
Other Recent Cursor Releases
- Remote control for local agents (October 6, 2026)
- Rollouts and Security Review (September 23, 2026)
- Cursor Projects (September 10, 2026)
- Self-hosted machines (September 2, 2026)
- Cloud Agents Start 3x Faster with Builds (August 13, 2026)
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