Nx in Cursor is launching VSCode instance

[mbtools]

Current Behavior

I'm using Cursor as IDE, but VSCode is also installed.

When running nx in my project, for example, nx run-many -t lint, nx will run a task with VSCode instead of Cursor:

cmd.exe /e:ON /v:OFF /d /c ""C:\VScode\bin\code.cmd" --list-extensions"

This is triggered by the following process:

"C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe" C:\GitHub\~tests\nx-cursor-vscode-issue\node_modules\.pnpm\nx@22.7.5\node_modules\nx\dist\src\daemon\server\start.js

Processes:

Expected Behavior

When nx is running inside Cursor, it's using Cursor instances only and never runs VSCode.

GitHub Repo

https://github.com/mbtools/nx-cursor-vscode-issue

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open project in Cursor
2. Open terminal
3. pnpm run lint:nocache (with cache it might be too fast to observe the issue)

Nx Report

Node           : 24.14.0
OS             : win32-x64
Native Target  : x86_64-windows
pnpm           : 11.1.3
daemon         : Available

nx             : 22.7.5
@nx/js         : 22.7.5
@nx/eslint     : 22.7.5
@nx/workspace  : 22.7.5
@nx/devkit     : 22.7.5
@nx/vite       : 22.7.5
@nx/vitest     : 22.7.5
@nx/web        : 22.7.5
typescript     : 5.9.3
---------------------------------------
Registered Plugins:
@nx/js/typescript
@nx/eslint/plugin
@nx/vite/plugin
@nx/vitest
---------------------------------------
Cache Usage: 0.00 B / 46.53 GB

Failure Logs

Cursor:

Version: 3.7.12 (user setup)
VS Code Extension API: 1.105.1
Commit: b887a26c4f70bd8136bfffeda812b24194ec9ce0
Date: 2026-06-05T01:45:12.918Z
Layout: editor
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.8.1
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
xterm.js: 6.1.0-beta.256
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045

Package Manager Version

pnpm 11

Operating System

• macOS
• Linux
• Windows
• Other (Please specify)

Additional Information

• Looks like a bug in https://github.com/nrwl/nx/blob/master/packages/nx/src/native/ide/detection.rs
• Shell: PowerShell 7.5.5
• Relevant Env:

CURSOR_...          n/a
TERM_PROGRAM                   vscode   (!)
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION           3.7.12

Unfortunately, I don't see anything else in env that would indicate that this is a cursor instance except the version.

Workaround

Disable check with NX_SKIP_VSCODE_EXTENSION_INSTALL=true