Agent teams: tmux-backed agents never receive initial prompt or messages (v2.1.32)

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Feb 5, 2026 by russell-davis Closed Feb 9, 2026

Bug Description

Agent teams using the tmux backend spawn correctly but agents never receive their initial prompt or any subsequent messages. The mailbox-based message delivery is completely broken for tmux-backed agents.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Start Claude Code inside a tmux session
  2. Create a team with spawnTeam
  3. Create tasks and spawn teammates (agents)
  4. Agents launch in new tmux panes with correct --agent-* CLI flags
  5. Agents boot to the idle welcome screen ("Try 'how do I log an error?'") and never receive instructions

Expected Behavior

Agents should receive their initial prompt via mailbox and begin working on assigned tasks.

Actual Behavior

  • Claude Code launches in new tmux panes successfully
  • The backendType is correctly set to "tmux" in team config
  • Agents sit at the idle welcome prompt indefinitely
  • Tasks remain in [pending] status forever
  • SendMessage (including shutdown requests) reports success but messages are never delivered
  • Agents are completely unreachable via the messaging system

Workaround

Running Claude Code outside of tmux (plain terminal) forces the in-process backend, which works correctly. All team features (task creation, message delivery, shutdown, cleanup) work fine with in-process agents.

Comparison

| Aspect | In-Process Backend | Tmux Backend |
|--------|-------------------|--------------|
| Agent launch | ✅ Works | ✅ Works |
| Prompt delivery | ✅ Works | ❌ Broken |
| Task execution | ✅ Works | ❌ Never starts |
| Message delivery | ✅ Works | ❌ Broken |
| Shutdown delivery | ✅ Works | ❌ Broken |

Environment

  • Claude Code v2.1.32
  • Linux (Arch Linux / kernel 6.18.3-arch1-1)
  • tmux 3.5a (confirmed working tmux session)

Additional Context

The tmux panes show the full launch command with all agent flags:

cd /path/to/project && CLAUDECODE=1 /home/user/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.32 --agent-id branch-checker@tmux-test --agent-name branch-checker --team-name tmux-test --agent-color green --parent-session-id <session-id> --agent-type general-purpose --model haiku

The process starts and renders the Claude Code UI, but the mailbox/IPC connection that should deliver the initial prompt and subsequent messages never connects. This appears to be a regression in how the tmux backend initializes mailbox polling for spawned agents.

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