Cursor user agent
Operated by Anysphere (Cursor)
Cursor is a user agent reported for the Cursor AI code editor when it fetches web pages.
The Cursor bot at a glance
- Cursor is operated by Anysphere (Cursor) and loads web pages in a browser to complete tasks on behalf of a user.
- The robots.txt token for Cursor is Cursor.
- Blocking an AI agent has no effect on search rankings.
- Cursor robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Your choice.
What is Cursor?
Cursor reads documentation pages that a developer or its agent references.
Anysphere has not published a crawler page.
Should you block Cursor?
Blocking Cursor is a business decision: it protects your content but can lower how well AI products know your brand.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI agent has no effect on search rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking stops agents from completing tasks on your website for their users, which can cost bookings or sales that agents would have made. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Your choice |
How to block or allow Cursor
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token Cursor is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop Cursor, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block Cursor
User-agent: Cursor
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow Cursor
User-agent: Cursor
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep Cursor out of private areas only
User-agent: Cursor
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to Cursor
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(Cursor)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to Cursor
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (Cursor) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "Cursor")How to verify real Cursor traffic
Anysphere (Cursor) publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for Cursor, so the user agent cannot be verified. Anyone can send the same string. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
How to find Cursor in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts Cursor requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "Cursor" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
Cursor FAQ
Cursor uses the robots.txt token "Cursor". Anysphere (Cursor) does not publish a full user-agent string, so match the token inside the User-Agent header.
Anysphere (Cursor) has not documented how Cursor treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
Blocking an AI agent has no effect on search rankings. Blocking stops agents from completing tasks on your website for their users, which can cost bookings or sales that agents would have made.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: Cursor" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. Anysphere (Cursor) publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for Cursor, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "Cursor", for example with: grep -i "Cursor" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Public bot registry. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
