[Feature Request] Main prompt remains interactive while agents work in background
Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Feb 19, 2026 by 0xebjc Closed Mar 19, 2026
Would it be possible for the main Claude session to stay responsive while agents execute in background?
Current behavior: When Claude delegates to Task agents, the prompt is blocked until the agent returns. For long-running tasks this means minutes of no interactivity.
Proposed behavior:
- Claude delegates substantive work via
run_in_background: trueby default - Main prompt returns immediately — user can ask questions, give new tasks, check status
- Agent results are reported at the next natural break
- Single terminal, single session — no multi-pane UI needed
This differs from #22034 (agent frontmatter flag) and #26376 (task queue) in that the ask is for the main session to never be blocked, not just for specific agents to run in background.
The input-during-execution bugs (#20431, #26388) are symptoms of this — user input during agent work is currently lost or misinterpreted because the session isn't designed to accept it.
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