Bugbot Effort Levels

Source: Cursor Date: 2026-05-11 URL: https://cursor.com/changelog/05-11-26

Summary

Cursor shipped configurable effort levels for Bugbot PR reviews: Default (speed-optimized, 0.7 bugs/run), High (thorough, 0.95 bugs/run — approximately 35% more bugs found), and Custom (natural language policy set by Teams admins). The feature requires usage-based billing, which Cursor announced separately will replace seat fees effective June 8. High-effort reviews cost more per run; the effort level controls the cost-quality trade-off explicitly.

Implications

• Feeds the token economics competition thread: Cursor is the third major platform (alongside Anthropic’s credit meter and OpenAI’s workspace agent credits) to move to consumption-based agent pricing in the same week. The effort level feature makes the cost-quality trade-off a first-class admin decision rather than a hidden billing variable.
• Feeds the enterprise deployment as battleground thread: natural language policies for effort control (admins describe when to use high effort in plain English) is the same pattern as Claude Code’s hard_deny rules and Teams-based Cursor governance — natural language as enterprise policy interface.
• The 35% improvement at “High” effort (0.7 → 0.95 bugs/run) quantifies the cost-quality curve for agentic code review — first published data point on the effort-vs-accuracy trade-off for autonomous PR analysis.