Cursor IDE

The Cursor desktop application, modelled as its own backend (cursor-ide) separate from the terminal CLI. It stores chat history in VS Code-style state.vscdb SQLite databases under the platform user-data directory.

Cursor IDE has no dedicated fast prompt-history backend. Pass --exhaustive to project prompt records from these databases. Targeted effort cannot route this backend.

Stores

cursor-ide.state_vscdb
default store
default store
cursor-ide.state_vscdb
Role:

primary_chat

Format:

sqlite

Coverage:

default_search

Adapter:

cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1cursor_ide.state_vscdb_legacy.v1

cursor-ide.workspace_state
default store
default store
cursor-ide.workspace_state
Role:

primary_chat

Format:

sqlite

Coverage:

default_search

Adapter:

cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1

cursor-ide.state_vscdb

cursor-ide.state_vscdb
default store
default store
cursor-ide.state_vscdb

Cursor IDE chat storage; known prompt/chat keys in ItemTable/cursorDiskKV hold conversation JSON. agentgrep does not scan arbitrary state values. Cursor does not publish a formal schema — agentgrep’s parser is the reference implementation. On WSL the store is discovered under the Windows-host mount too (see ADR 0009).

Agent:

Cursor IDE

Role:

primary_chat

Format:

sqlite

Coverage:

default_search

Path:

${HOME}/.config/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

Adapter:

cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1, cursor_ide.state_vscdb_legacy.v1

Data version:

-

Version strategies:

-

Observed:

Cursor IDE (current observed paths) (2026-07-11)

Default search:

yes

Cursor IDE store, parsed by the current cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1 adapter. Not the same as the Cursor CLI agent transcripts.

cursor-ide.workspace_state

cursor-ide.workspace_state
default store
default store
cursor-ide.workspace_state

Per-workspace state.vscdb, one per opened project under workspaceStorage/<hash>/. Same ItemTable shape as the global store; the aiService.prompts key holds that workspace’s prompt history. The directory hash contributes origin.cwd_hash; sibling workspace.json can contribute origin.cwd. Reuses the cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1 adapter.

Agent:

Cursor IDE

Role:

primary_chat

Format:

sqlite

Coverage:

default_search

Path:

${HOME}/.config/Cursor/User/workspaceStorage/<hash>/state.vscdb

Adapter:

cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1

Data version:

-

Version strategies:

-

Observed:

Cursor IDE (current observed paths) (2026-07-11)

Default search:

yes

Per-workspace IDE history, complementing the global cursor-ide.state_vscdb. Parsed by the shared cursor_ide.state_vscdb_modern.v1 adapter.

Record schemas

Global state database

cursor-ide.state_vscdb is the platform-specific global SQLite database (state.vscdb). agentgrep reads known prompt and chat keys in ItemTable/cursorDiskKV; it does not scan arbitrary state values. Global records may not carry project origin because the database is shared across workspaces.

Platform

Path

Linux

~/.config/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

macOS

~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

Windows

%APPDATA%/Cursor/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb

Workspace state databases

cursor-ide.workspace_state covers one state.vscdb per opened project under workspaceStorage/<hash>/. These share the global store’s ItemTable shape; the aiService.prompts key holds that workspace’s typed prompt history. agentgrep enumerates them through the platform workspaceStorage directory and parses them with the same adapter as the global store.

Project context

Store

model

cwd

branch

cursor-ide.state_vscdb

composerData modelConfig.modelName, bubbleId modelInfo.modelName

composerData gitWorktree.worktreePath

composerData gitWorktree.branchName

cursor-ide.workspace_state

same composer keys

sibling workspace.json folder URI

composerData gitWorktree.branchName

Cursor keeps the interesting metadata in cursorDiskKV, not in the prompt keys: composerData:<uuid> is the session document, carrying the model it ran under and a gitWorktree block with the worktree path and branch name, and bubbleId:<uuid>:<uuid> is one turn of that session, naming its own model. Both are read, and both are lossless — Cursor writes the path, so --cwd, cwd:, and branch: answer with the real values. A turn that ran in its own worktree keeps its own origin rather than inheriting the session’s.

Per-workspace stores also contribute origin.cwd_hash from the workspaceStorage/<hash> directory, and agentgrep resolves the sibling workspace.json folder URI to origin.cwd. That pair lets --cwd, cwd:, MCP cwd, and cwd_hash: target one Cursor workspace without opening unrelated workspace databases. The workspace cwd is a fact about the database, not a promise about every record in it, so a composer bubble that names a different worktree still wins for its own record.

Global state.vscdb records stay conservative when no composer origin is known. They remain searchable by text, agent, scope, and other non-origin fields, but they do not satisfy a hard current-project filter unless the stored record itself carries project metadata.

Note

Cursor publishes no schema for the composerData and bubbleId keys. Every read is guarded, so a schema change degrades to an absent field rather than a wrong one.

Cross-host discovery on WSL

Cursor is a VS Code fork, so when its UI runs on a Windows host and edits a project inside WSL, the IDE chat is written client-side on Windows under /mnt/c/Users/<user>/AppData/Roaming/Cursor/User, not inside the distro. On WSL, agentgrep detects this and also probes the Windows users mount so both the global and per-workspace state.vscdb databases are searchable from Linux. AGENTGREP_WSL_USERS_ROOT overrides the mount root (default /mnt/c/Users) for non-default drive letters. See ADR 0009: Cross-host discovery and remote-workspace path mapping for the design.