Tools
A guide to all available tools in Cursor’s Chat modes for searching, editing, and interacting with your codebase
The following is a list of all the tools available to the modes within the Chat.
While these are fixes for Cursor’s default modes, you can enable or disable any of these tools when building your own custom modes.
Agents can perform up to 25 tool calls per session. If this limit is reached, you can press “Continue” to allow additional tool calls (each “Continue” counts as one request).
Search
These tools are used to search your codebase and the web to find relevant information.
Read File
Read the contents of a file within your codebase.
— Up to 750 lines in max mode
— Up to 250 lines in other modes
List Directory
Read the structure of a directory without reading the contents of the files.
Codebase
Perform semantic searches within your indexed codebase.
Grep
Search for exact keywords or patterns within files.
Search Files
Quickly find files by name using fuzzy matching.
Web
Generate search queries and perform web searches.
Fetch Rules
Retrieve specific rules based on rule type and description.
Edit
These tools are used to make specific edits to your files and codebase.
Edit & Reapply
Suggest edits to files and applies them automatically.
Delete File
Delete files autonomously (can be disabled in settings).
Run
The Chat has the ability to interact with your terminal.
Terminal
Cursor can execute terminal commands, and montitor the output.
By default, Cursor will use the first terminal profile available within Cursor that it can use.
To set your preferred terminal profile:
- Open Command Palette (
Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P
) - Search for “Terminal: Select Default Profile”
- Choose your desired profile
MCP Servers
Chat can make use of configured MCP servers to be able to interact with external services, such as databases or 3rd party APIs.
Toggle MCP Servers
Toggle all available MCP servers. This will respect auto-run option.
Learn more about MCP Servers.
Advanced Options
Auto-apply Edits
Automatically apply edits without manual confirmation.
Auto-run
Automatically execute terminal commands and accept edits. Useful for running test suites and verifying changes.
Guardrails
Define guardrails and allow/deny lists for specific tools to control automatic execution. Configure these settings as needed.
Auto-fix Errors
Automatically resolve linter errors and warnings.
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