Customize Bugbot PR Review Effort
TL;DR
Admins and Individual plan users can now set Bugbot's effort level to Default, High, or Custom. High effort allows for deeper reasoning to find more bugs, while Custom effort uses natural language instructions to determine review intensity.
What changed
On May 11, 2026 Cursor added effort controls for Bugbot PR reviews. Admins and Individual plan users can now choose Default, High, or Custom modes.
Default keeps the existing speed-focused behavior. High mode increases reasoning time and cost to surface more issues. Custom mode accepts natural language rules that decide when to apply higher effort. Users must be on usage-based billing. Internal data shows Default finds 0.7 bugs per run on average while High reaches 0.95.
Why it matters
The change gives teams direct control over review depth versus spend. Solo builders and small teams can now match Bugbot intensity to the risk level of each pull request instead of accepting a single fixed setting.
It pressures competing AI coding tools to expose similar levers. The bet is that granular control will reduce wasted reviews on low-stakes changes while catching more problems on critical ones.
How to use it
Open the Bugbot dashboard at cursor.com/dashboard/bugbot and select the effort-levels section. Pick Default, High, or write custom instructions in natural language.
Confirm usage-based billing is active first. Changes apply immediately to new PR reviews.
Watch for
Track whether Custom rules actually reduce average cost per PR while maintaining bug detection rates. Watch for a follow-up release that adds per-repository defaults or automatic effort suggestions based on file changes.
Harsh’s take
Most solo Vibe Builders will default to High effort on every PR and watch their usage bill climb without clear proof the extra bugs justify the spend. The Custom option sounds flexible but requires ongoing tuning that few operators will maintain.
The real trade-off is time versus money: you either accept slower, pricier reviews or invest hours writing instructions that may drift as your codebase changes. Cursor is testing whether users will pay for optional thoroughness rather than shipping a consistently strong baseline.
Set Custom rules for your highest-risk repositories this week and measure actual bugs caught against the added token cost before rolling it out further.
by Harsh Desai
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