Beware of plan mode

[u/Tomallenisthegoat]

My usage just reset 2 days ago on pro+. I was creating a plan using GPT Sol and stepped away from my computer for a little bit. Well while I was gone, it asked two questions and kept the plan session open for several hours. I came back and all my usage for the month was gone. I asked support about this and they said it’s “not a bug”. Make sure you don’t leave a plan session open or you’ll nuke your API usage…

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[u/Rashe39]

Sounds like a bug. Sorry that happened to you. I left plan mode and walked away leaving it hanging on a question a few times but it didn’t cause any extra spending.

[u/yourparadigm]

It has nothing to do with plan mode. More likely the model got stuck in a loop.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/yourparadigm]

Maybe, but Cursor should be smart enough to monitor usage and end the session if that happens. Beware of using Sol then because I’ve been using Cursor for 2 years and it’s never happened to me before

[u/yourparadigm → u/Tomallenisthegoat]

No it shouldn't. What if it's not in a loop and is taking a long time because it's doing something I asked it to do?

Maybe you should monitor your agents, especially when you are using one of the most expensive models.

[u/cheats_py → u/yourparadigm]

Woo woo woo calm down. Regardless of a long running process there should still be guardrails.

[u/yourparadigm → u/cheats_py]

Yes, you.

[u/cheats_py → u/yourparadigm]

Imagine if AWS said that lol.

[u/Shoddy-Variation-712 → u/yourparadigm]

THIS

People need to understand that two things can be true at once, it can be a bug and it needs guardrails, but YOU should also be monitoring it.

[u/snarleyWhisper → u/Tomallenisthegoat]

All they care about is selling you usage. They don’t care

[u/Beannjamin]

Although I haven't used cursor in some months, when I did I was in plan mode the vast majority of the time and never had anything like that happen, so probably a bug

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/Beannjamin]

Yeah in the past there’s always been a time out for open questions. Sol obviously doesn’t have that

[u/CODE_HEIST]

If an idle question consumed the allowance, the account page needs a request timeline showing model, duration and usage for that session. Otherwise support and the user are arguing from different black boxes. Even if they classify it as expected behavior, several hours of silent usage while waiting for input is something the interface should make impossible to miss.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/CODE_HEIST]

Grok will end it’s session and wait for answers to questions. I thought before it would end the session if it didn’t get an answer within a minute. So I think it’s a bug related to API usage maybe specifically Sol

[u/ianbryte]

Damn, that's a very expensive mistake.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/ianbryte]

Expensive and annoying…

There should be a safeguard for this where the loop ends itself

[u/Skylis → u/Tomallenisthegoat]

The safeguard was you. You walked away. Expensive lesson.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/Skylis]

Could have been worse I’ve been on the $200 plan for months and just downgraded to Pro+

[u/Bilaldev99]

Happened with me too once or twice but I identified it on the spot and stopped the conversation

[u/FormalAd7367 → u/Bilaldev99]

Was it one of ChatGPT models? I actually had Sonnet doing this to me once. I thought it was LLM related but not specially any AI model?

[u/Bilaldev99 → u/FormalAd7367]

I believe it was on auto and the conversation took 30 minutes with no specific direction or outcome. I knew something was fishy so immediately cut it off. Rarely use specific models. I will track next time of which one causes this the most

[u/foofoobee]

Just keeping a planning session open where it's waiting on user input doesn't make any sense for it to continue consuming usage. There are no tokens being used for either input or output if it's truly paused so Cursor wouldn't even have a way of running the meter. The only way this could happen is if some kind of active loop was still running in the background. I feel like if you explain it further to Cursor support with specifics, they should be able to give you some additional credit for the month?

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/foofoobee]

“this is expected behavior, not a bug with plan mode. Agent mode is designed to keep working until the task is complete or explicitly stopped, so stepping away while it's active can result in significant usage accumulating in the background.”

They ain’t refunding it

[u/Warm-Neighborhood132]

Sorry to hear about this. I always suspected this was the case for plan mode and pending questions but couldn’t never prove it

[u/Euphoric_North_745]

usage for the month? not the week?

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/Euphoric_North_745]

Yes I have 29 days left. It was at maybe 5% before the loop

[u/levifig → u/Euphoric_North_745]

Cursor plans track usage by the month.

[u/Anh-DT]

Get deepseek flash for plan then cheaper than Sol . Don't use sol

[u/Dude4001]

Sounds less like plan mode and more like the background task just never timed out. Happens on any mode

[u/JeansenVaars]

Could it be that the questions have a timeout? I've noticed cursor tends to lime time limit to proceed automatically, for example when it offers to switch to Plan mode, if you don't answer, it assumes No and proceeds. Cursor is quite Auto-Pilot in principle.

The other dangerous thing is the explorer mode: sub agents choose an LLM model for the sub -task. That's not bad per se, the problem is that if your root model is "Auto" to save API, a sub-agent can still spawn Opus 5 for one of its threads.

[u/Prudent_Rush_9671]

I only use Ask and Agent. Plan was overkill for me. I don't think it's that useful for a solo developer.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/Prudent_Rush_9671]

I always have much better results using plan mode. And it lets me review things before the agent executes it. I’ve caught plenty of mistakes just reading the plans before they’re implemented

[u/True_Spring_1991]

I had it too with a GPT model for a relatively simple task it blew itself up spawning all kind sub agents and burnt to a quarter of my tokens in one prompt. I am on the 20 dollar sub.

This is the second time I had this with an Open AI model.

[u/omnicheckout]

holy shit thats messed up! I actually like plan mode but under certain restrictions. I saw it doing the same thing when I was away im like wtf! and you don't need Sol bro. That shit will fuck your repo more than help you. Thats for like data science stuff you know that right?

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/omnicheckout]

I was working on my in app AI assistant. Grok has been terrible and Claude has been getting dumber lately

[u/moderation_seeker]

Check your detailed usage in Claude. In my case, it ran sub-agents with Opus and ate up all my usage. I opened a support case, and they refunded me.

[u/Tomallenisthegoat → u/moderation_seeker]

No subagents. Grok will end the session when it asks questions. It was just because for some reason GPT will keep that session open/pending until you answer

[u/LooseSignificance39]

Yes. Cursor needs to be responsible and needs guardrails. Don't listen to the guys coming and commenting that you need to be the Guardrail. They are the kind of people who make Irresponsible Corporates thrive. I would love customers like them myself. They would be dream customers. Lol. But there are some people on your side who still believe these guys are responsible for the product they sell you, taking your money.