Stale background task indicators persist in UI after completion

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened Jan 18, 2026 by mraarone Closed Jan 22, 2026

Description

Background task/agent indicators continue showing "running" status in the UI after the tasks have completed. The user sees multiple tool runs that "aren't doing anything" - ghost entries that never clear.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Launch multiple background agents using Task tool with run_in_background: true
  2. Wait for agents to complete (confirmed via TaskOutput showing status: completed)
  3. Observe that the UI still shows tasks as running

Expected Behavior

Task indicators should clear or show "completed" status when background agents finish.

Actual Behavior

Task indicators persist showing running/active status even after:

  • TaskOutput confirms status: completed
  • ps aux shows no related processes running
  • Work output has been successfully retrieved

Environment

  • Claude Code version: 2.1.12
  • Platform: WSL2 (Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2)
  • Context: Using parallel background agents for Neo4j migration work

Additional Context

User observed 4 stale task indicators that persisted across conversation continuation (claude --continue).

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