Plugins, Sandbox Access Controls, and Async Subagents

Source: Cursor Date: 2026-02-17 URL: https://cursor.com/changelog/2-5

Summary

Cursor 2.5 launches the Plugins marketplace (bundling skills, subagents, MCP servers, hooks, and rules into single installs; initial partners include Amplitude, AWS, Figma, Linear, Stripe), async subagents (run in background without blocking parent, can spawn child subagents for multi-file features and large refactors), and sandbox network controls (granular domain access modes). Settings removed: Dotfile Protection, Default Mode, Auto-Accept on Commit.

Implications

MCP/protocol adoption. The Plugins marketplace bundling MCP servers alongside skills, hooks, and rules is a packaging innovation — it transforms MCP from a protocol you configure into a product you install. Partners like Stripe and AWS shipping plugins means the integration surface is moving from developer-built to vendor-maintained. This is the App Store model for agentic tooling.

Agent-IDE feature race. Async subagents with recursive spawning (subagents spawning child subagents) is a step toward a fully recursive multi-agent architecture. For large refactors that need to coordinate across files and services, this is meaningfully more powerful than sequential agent chaining. Aider and Codex CLI don’t have native subagent spawning.

Watch: Whether the plugin bundling model creates lock-in (plugins only work in Cursor) or adopts open standards for portability, and whether “Build in Cloud” plan execution handoff becomes a primary workflow for async task delegation.