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cursor-cli-input-patch

Unicode input fixes for Cursor CLI
_{word navigation · blank-line scroll · local · reversible · unofficial}

Naming: The product is Cursor CLI. You run agent (cursor-agent is a legacy alias). This repo patches your local install — it does not ship Cursor binaries.

Before In the agent prompt, two things feel wrong: Option/Alt + ← / → (macOS) or Ctrl + ← / → (Windows/Linux) only treats [A-Za-z0-9_] as “word” characters and skips the rest ↑ onto a blank line above a soft-wrapped URL/path scrolls away and snaps the caret to the wrapped row

After Same keys, predictable behavior: Word jump uses Intl.Segmenter (granularity: "word", runtime default locale) Blank lines and wrap end-of-line map to the correct visual row — no scroll jump

Who is affected?

Not CJK-only — the two fixes have different scopes:

Fix	Affected users
Option/Ctrl + ← / →	Text with characters outside [A-Za-z0-9_] — Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Greek, Devanagari, Latin with accents (café), etc. Mostly fine for plain ASCII English. Same class of bug in other TUIs (Codex CLI, Claude Code).
↑ on a blank line above a wrapped row	Language-agnostic — long URLs, file paths, or any soft-wrapped line with empty rows above.

Built around Korean/CJK pain points; the word-motion patch helps any script the stock ASCII regex skips.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/vzts/cursor-cli-input-patch.git
cd cursor-cli-input-patch

python3 tests/test_behavior.py   # no Cursor install needed
python3 apply_patch.py           # latest CLI + IDE worker
python3 apply_patch.py --install # optional: zsh hook (see below)

Restart agent (or cursor-agent if you still use that alias) after patching.

Requirements

• Python 3 — runs the patcher
• Node.js — node --check before writing
• macOS — install paths (especially the IDE worker copy) match Cursor’s layout today
• Cursor CLI — already installed: curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash
• --install — zsh only (writes ~/.zshrc). Bash/fish: run python3 apply_patch.py manually or wrap agent yourself.

What it patches

Only 4794.index.js — the text-input bundle in your existing install.

Word motion	ASCII-only helpers → Intl.Segmenter for Option/Ctrl + arrow
Empty lines	findLine fix — blank rows and wrap EOL no longer fall back to line 0

Auto-targets (on-disk paths still use the cursor-agent name):

~/.local/share/cursor-agent/versions/<latest>/
~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/.../cursor-agent-worker/.../versions/<latest>/

Use --no-worker to patch the CLI copy only.

What it deliberately skips

Area	Reason
Plain ← / →	NFC Hangul is already one UTF-16 code unit per syllable; no patch needed
Backspace / Delete (grapheme)	Same
CJK display-width ↑ / ↓	Terminal caret is 1 column per code point; width-2 math lands on the wrong glyph
IME candidate window	An older reposition patch hung agent — removed and refused

The patcher never moves the terminal cursor with escape sequences.

Commands

python3 apply_patch.py              # patch CLI + worker
python3 apply_patch.py --install    # zsh hook → auto-patch before `agent`
python3 apply_patch.py --ensure     # quiet if done; warn and exit 0 on mismatch
python3 apply_patch.py --restore    # rollback from .orig.bak
python3 apply_patch.py --list-backups
python3 apply_patch.py --dry-run -v # preview / verbose
python3 apply_patch.py --no-worker  # CLI only

After a CLI update · backups · reinstall

Cursor updates replace the version folder. Re-run python3 apply_patch.py, or launch agent if --install is set.

Backups — one pristine original per version, never overwritten:

~/.local/share/cursor-cli-input-patch/backups/*.orig.bak

Older clones used ~/.local/share/cursor-agent-cjk-input-patch/backups/ — moved on first run.

If a future minify no longer matches, the patcher fails closed (exits with an error). With --ensure, it prints a warning and still lets agent start. Last resort:

curl https://cursor.com/install -fsS | bash

How it works

flowchart LR
  A[agent launch] --> B{zsh hook?}
  B -->|yes| C[apply_patch.py --ensure]
  B -->|no| D[manual run]
  C --> E[find 4794.index.js]
  D --> E
  E --> F[replace pinned snippets]
  F --> G{node --check}
  G -->|ok| H[write + backup]
  G -->|fail| I[rollback]

Loading

Patterns are pinned to a specific minified shape — the patcher refuses to guess if Cursor re-minifies differently.

Tests

python3 tests/test_behavior.py    # portable; no Cursor install
python3 tests/test_pty_arrows.py  # live TUI over PTY; needs patched CLI + `agent` on PATH

_{Unofficial · not affiliated with Cursor · MIT © 2026 vzts}