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