What causes "Cursor uninstall only works with --global flag" in rtk-ai/rtk?

Run `rtk uninstall --global --cursor`

rtk-ai/rtk · error · anyhow::Error

Cursor uninstall only works with --global flag

Error message

Cursor uninstall only works with --global flag

What it means

RTK's Cursor hooks are only ever installed globally (Cursor user settings), so the uninstaller refuses a scoped `--cursor` uninstall instead of pretending it cleaned something. The check runs before remove_cursor_hooks is called, so no files are touched.

Source

Thrown at src/hooks/init.rs:661

    global: bool,
    gemini: bool,
    codex: bool,
    cursor: bool,
    pi: bool,
    ctx: InitContext,
) -> Result<()> {
    let InitContext { verbose, dry_run } = ctx;
    if codex {
        uninstall_codex(global, ctx)?;
        if dry_run {
            print_dry_run_footer();
        }
        return Ok(());
    }

    if cursor {
        if !global {
            anyhow::bail!("Cursor uninstall only works with --global flag");
        }
        let cursor_removed = remove_cursor_hooks(ctx).context("Failed to remove Cursor hooks")?;
        if !cursor_removed.is_empty() {
            let header = if dry_run {
                "[dry-run] would uninstall RTK (Cursor):"
            } else {
                "RTK uninstalled (Cursor):"
            };
            println!("{}", header);
            for item in &cursor_removed {
                println!("  - {}", item);
            }
            if !dry_run {
                println!("\nRestart Cursor to apply changes.");
            }
        } else {
            println!("RTK Cursor support was not installed (nothing to remove)");
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to d977e1c316)

Solutions

Run `rtk uninstall --global --cursor`
Preview what will be removed first: `rtk uninstall --global --cursor --dry-run`

Example fix

# before
rtk uninstall --cursor

# after
rtk uninstall --global --cursor --dry-run   # preview
rtk uninstall --global --cursor

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# bash: enforce the flag rule before uninstalling
if [[ "$TARGET" == cursor && "$GLOBAL" != 1 ]]; then
  echo 'cursor uninstall requires --global' >&2; exit 2
fi
rtk uninstall ${GLOBAL:+--global} --cursor

Prevention

Always pair --cursor with --global in aliases and docs
Run uninstall with --dry-run in scripts before the destructive pass

When it happens

Trigger: `rtk uninstall --cursor` without `--global` — the bail at src/hooks/init.rs:663.

Common situations: Copy-pasting the install command and changing 'init' to 'uninstall' but dropping -g; muscle-memory from `rtk uninstall` for local Claude projects (which is also rejected).

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of rtk-ai/rtk@d977e1c316 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/b4eab9f51bc32ec5. Report an issue: GitHub.