Delegate a coding task to the Cursor Agent CLI (`cursor-agent`) as a background implementer, then review its diff and land it yourself. Use this whenever the user wants to hand implementation work to Cursor — phrasings like "have Cursor implement X", "delegate this to Cursor", "run it through Cursor

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) 1. cursor agent version succeeds. If not, follow the installer for your platform at [cursor.com/cli](https://cursor.com/cli), inspect what it will run, and authenticate with cursor agent login . 2. cursor agent status shows you logged in. 3. 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](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 .) 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](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](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](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/review and land.md). References [references/writing the brief.md](references/writing the brief.md) — structure, report contract, real gates, and delta briefs. [references/dispatch and poll.md](references/dispatch and poll.md) — flags, artifacts, result.json , polling, and failure recovery. [references/review and land.md](references/review and land.md) — review checklist, commit boundary, and rework through Cursor sessions. [references/multi task queues.md](references/multi task queues.md) — sequential queues, constraint carry forward, progress tracking, and the final coherence pass.

cursor-delegate