[Bug]: High CPU usage when app is open (macOS) #2646

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1. Jacxk

   added

   bugSomething is broken or behaving incorrectly.Something is broken or behaving incorrectly.

   needs-triageIssue needs maintainer review and initial categorization.Issue needs maintainer review and initial categorization.

   on May 11, 2026
2. Amer-Alic commented on May 12, 2026

   

   Amer-Alic

   on May 12, 2026

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   Same issue here. 30GB+ of system usage crashing my mac
3. neominik commented on May 12, 2026

   

   neominik

   on May 12, 2026

   Contributor

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   Also see very high battery drain when T3 code (v0.0.23) is open.
   Mostly seems to come from constantly spawning CPU-intensive node processes, not sure what they are doing.
   

   👍React with 👍2Reacted by Yanluis Fermin and Tiago Ribeiro
4. corbanvilla commented on May 12, 2026

   

   corbanvilla

   on May 12, 2026

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   Same issue here.
5. corbanvilla commented on May 12, 2026

   

   corbanvilla

   on May 12, 2026

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   Codex thinks it's to do with the new cursor agent... Seems plausible:

   I captured a live process snapshot while T3 Code Alpha was open. The high CPU did not appear to be primarily from the Electron renderer. T3’s bundled server process was spawning multiple Cursor ACP
     agents:
   
     /Applications/T3 Code (Alpha).app/.../apps/server/dist/bin.mjs --bootstrap-fd 3
       -> /Users/.../.local/bin/agent --use-system-ca .../cursor-agent/versions/2026.05.05-84a231c/index.js acp
   
     At capture time, several very new agent ... acp children were using roughly 35-84% CPU each. One hot Cursor ACP child had also spawned:
   
     .../cursor-agent/versions/2026.05.05-84a231c/rg --files --follow --max-depth 16 --no-messages
   
     This makes the issue look like repeated Cursor provider status/model discovery or capability enrichment spawning ACP sessions and triggering filesystem crawls. That would also explain macOS system
     processes like syspolicyd, securityd, Spotlight/mdworker, and kernel_task showing activity, since the child process is walking files.
   
     Potentially relevant code paths from the repo:
   
     - apps/server/src/provider/Layers/CursorProvider.ts
         - checkCursorProviderStatus calls discoverCursorModelsViaAcp
         - enrichCursorSnapshot calls discoverCursorModelCapabilitiesViaAcp
         - CURSOR_ACP_MODEL_DISCOVERY_CONCURRENCY = 4
         - per-model capability probes retry up to 3 times
     - apps/server/src/provider/makeManagedServerProvider.ts
         - runs initial and periodic provider refreshes
     - apps/server/src/provider/Layers/ProviderRegistry.ts
         - force-refreshes newly added/rebuilt provider instances at startup
   
     Recent commits that may be related:
   
     - aa219be7 - port desktop app to Effect
     - 08e6d4cf - Multi-Provider support
     - 3c32bc8 - v0.0.23 release commit
   
6. venkat2305 commented on May 12, 2026

   

   venkat2305

   on May 12, 2026

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   I’m facing the same issue on M4 MacBook.
7. juliusmarminge commented on May 13, 2026

   

   juliusmarminge

   on May 13, 2026

   Member

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   this should fix the high burst of cursor probes: #2428

   new api in the agent cli they added for us so haven't gotten the go-ahead that it's released to GA yet though hence it's sitting and waiting to be merged...

   also looking into how to reduce the background processes when idle

   👍React with 👍7Reacted by Dominik Engelhardt, Tiago Ribeiro, Corban Villa, ElGovanni, Yanluis Fermin, Tyler Hamilton and Jorrit Verstappen
8. jhack0x commented on May 20, 2026

   

   jhack0x

   on May 20, 2026

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   @corbanvilla @juliusmarminge Thanks, you're lifesavers! My M1 stopped overheating and draining the battery by simply disabling Cursor in Settings > Providers

   ❤️React with ❤️1Reacted by Jorrit Verstappen
9. juliusmarminge

   closed this as completedon Jun 3, 2026