/resume should include background sessions (or add a separate picker for them)
Resolved 💬 5 comments Opened May 13, 2026 by zentrolink-ivanzhukov Closed May 19, 2026
Currently Claude Code has two separate UIs for sessions:
/resumeshows only interactive sessions. Background sessions (started via/bgorclaude --bg) never appear in the picker — not even after their job entry has been deleted viaCtrl+X Ctrl+Xinclaude agents.claude agentsshows only sessions that have an active record in~/.claude/jobs/<id>/. AfterCtrl+X Ctrl+Xthe session disappears from there too.
Meanwhile the full JSONL transcript is still on disk at ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-cwd>/<full-session-id>.jsonl, and the session can be revived — but only by knowing the full session id and running from the shell:
claude --resume <full-session-id>
This is awkward: to return to a previously-existing background session you have to drop into the filesystem, grep transcripts and copy a UUID, instead of just picking it from a list.
Proposal — one of:
- Add a toggle to
/resume(e.g.Ctrl+G— "show background / orphaned sessions") so the picker also lists them. - Or add a separate command — e.g.
/sessions— listing every JSONL underprojects/regardless of whether ajobs/entry exists. - Or add an "archived / orphaned" tab to
claude agentsfor sessions whose transcript still exists but whose job record has been deleted.
Any of these would close the gap: right now a background session is effectively unreachable from any UI after Ctrl+X Ctrl+X, even though the data is physically present on disk.
Repro
- Start a background session (
/bgorclaude --bg), let it finish. - In
claude agents, select it and pressCtrl+X Ctrl+X(delete). - Open
/resume— the session is not listed. - Open
claude agents— also not listed. - The transcript
~/.claude/projects/<encoded-cwd>/<full-id>.jsonlis still on disk andclaude --resume <full-id>opens it fine.
Environment
- Claude Code CLI version: 2.1.140
- Platform: Linux
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