Cursor CLI Configuration

This skill explains how to view and modify Cursor CLI settings stored in

cli-config.json

.

Config File Location

The config file is

~/.cursor/cli-config.json

.

Projects can layer overrides via

.cursor/cli.json

files. The CLI walks from the git root to the current working directory and merges each

.cursor/cli.json

it finds (deeper files take precedence). Project overrides only affect the current session; they are not written back to the home config.

How to Modify

Read

~/.cursor/cli-config.json

, apply changes, and write it back. The file is standard JSON. Changes take effect after restarting the CLI.

Available Settings

permissions

(required)

Tool permission rules. Each entry is a string pattern.

• allow

  : string[] — patterns for allowed tool calls (e.g.

  "Shell(**)"

  ,

  "Mcp(server-name, tool-name)"

  )

• deny

  : string[] — patterns for denied tool calls

editor

• vimMode

  : boolean — enable vim keybindings in the CLI input

• defaultBehavior

  :

  "ide"

  |

  "agent"

  — default behavior mode

display

(optional)

• showLineNumbers

  : boolean (default: false) — show line numbers in code output

• showThinkingBlocks

  : boolean (default: false) — show model thinking/reasoning blocks

• showStatusIndicators

  : boolean (default: false) — show status indicators in the UI

channel

(optional)

Release channel:

"prod"

|

"staging"

|

"lab"

|

"static"

maxMode

(optional)

boolean (default: false) — enable max mode for higher-quality model responses

approvalMode

(optional)

Controls tool approval behavior:

• "allowlist"

  (default) — require approval for tools not in the allow list

• "unrestricted"

  — auto-approve all tool calls (yolo mode)

sandbox

(optional)

Sandbox execution environment settings:

• mode

  :

  "disabled"

  |

  "enabled"

  (default:

  "disabled"

  )

• networkAccess

  :

  "user_config_only"

  |

  "user_config_with_defaults"

  |

  "allow_all"

  — controls network access from sandbox

• networkAllowlist

  : string[] — domains the sandbox is allowed to reach

network

(optional)

• useHttp1ForAgent

  : boolean (default: false) — use HTTP/1.1 instead of HTTP/2 for agent connections (enables SSE-based streaming)

bedrock

(optional)

AWS Bedrock integration settings:

• enabled

  : boolean (default: false)

• mode

  :

  "access-key"

  |

  "team-role"

  (default:

  "access-key"

  )

• region

  : string — AWS region

• testModel

  : string — model to use for testing

• teamRoleArn

  : string — IAM role ARN for team mode

• teamExternalId

  : string — external ID for STS assume-role

attribution

(optional)

Controls how agent work is attributed in git:

• attributeCommitsToAgent

  : boolean (default: true) — attribute commits to the agent

• attributePRsToAgent

  : boolean (default: true) — attribute PRs to the agent

webFetchDomainAllowlist

(optional)

string[] — domains the web fetch tool is allowed to access (e.g.

"docs.github.com"

,

"*.example.com"

,

"*"

)

Fields You Should NOT Modify

These are internal/cached state and should not be edited manually:

• version

  — config schema version

• model

  /

  selectedModel

  /

  modelParameters

  /

  hasChangedDefaultModel

  — managed by the model picker

• privacyCache

  — cached privacy mode state

• authInfo

  — cached authentication info

• showSandboxIntro

  — one-time UI flag

• conversationClassificationScoredConversations

  — internal cache