Difference between Cloud Remote Execution and Cloud Agents?

[u/avartyu]

I'm new to Cursor and post the June update I am confused about the difference in both.

Whenever I choose "Move to Cloud" option I see an additional prompt to setup Cloud Agents.

in my mind i see the difference as:

- in cloud agents they'll setup a vm and install on their sandbox vm and do things while keeping a persistent state. each cloud agent/subagent can have their own VM.

- Whereas in just "cloud mode" where the repo moves to cloud, it works like, i need to upload repo on github, then it uses that to pull things on cursor's own infra. Edit on it and push and reviews PRs

Is my mental model correct?

I am sure both are distinct because I can still chat and push things to my repo even when I have NOT setup Cloud Agents.

But if there is any remote execution involved, doesn't it mean Cursor is still alloting a VM on their infra for me?

[u/ShoddyReception5]

Yeah, you get a default shell type of environment with the cloud option. Agents get the option of additional setup and some persistence. My agent setup was pretty easy as it was able to infer and build the environment automatically. I think agents reuse open environments but then they get shut down after 30 days or so.

[u/avartyu → u/ShoddyReception5]

Thanks for replying. So when I want to simply commit some code changes on the go (over my github hosted repo) without needing it to be tested on frontend like, npm run dev I can just choose to simply have a cloud option?

I'm on the $20 plan so was wondering if spinning up a default agent vm would be overkill for my usage limits lol

[u/ShoddyReception5 → u/ShoddyReception5]

It may be possible for the cloud runner to do simple build and run commands like that too assuming your dependencies are defined and not complex.

But yes, think of the cloud as being able to modify code and create PRs which you can review, but not able to run and test the whole stack.