VSCode Extension: Preview opens wrong file when started from subdirectory in Cursor IDE

[michaelaye]

Bug Description

When opening a .qmd file in a subdirectory and triggering Quarto preview in Cursor IDE, the preview renders a different file from the project root instead of the opened file.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have a Quarto project with subdirectories containing .qmd files:

   project/
   ├── template.qmd
   ├── english/
   │   └── template.qmd
   └── german/
       └── template.qmd
   

2. Open english/template.qmd in Cursor IDE
3. Trigger Quarto preview (Cmd+Shift+K or preview button)
4. Observe that project/template.qmd is previewed instead of english/template.qmd

Expected Behavior

Preview should render the currently opened file (english/template.qmd)

Actual Behavior

Preview renders the root template.qmd file instead, ignoring which file is actually open in the editor

Environment

• Cursor IDE version: 2.3.41 (fork of VS Code)
• Quarto extension version: 1.128.0
• Quarto CLI version: 1.8.26
• OS: macOS 26.2 (Sequoia)

Workaround

Running quarto preview template.qmd from command line in the subdirectory works correctly, so this appears to be an IDE extension issue rather than a Quarto CLI bug.

Additional Context

• The issue occurs consistently regardless of which subdirectory file is opened
• The preview always defaults to the root template.qmd file
• This makes it impossible to preview subdirectory-specific templates from within Cursor IDE
• Cursor IDE is based on VS Code, so this may affect VS Code as well

Related Issues

• Possibly related to working directory resolution in the VS Code extension
• Similar behavior seen in Quarto processes several files when previewing one quarto-cli#7049 (Quarto processes several files when previewing one)

Example Repository

Can be reproduced with: https://github.com/michaelaye/fub-letter

[juliasilge]

I don't observe this with your example repo, in either Positron or VS Code. Can you share what version of the Quarto extension you are using, and also what version of the Quarto CLI?