[BUG] Status line shows stale shells/monitors counters after /clear with nothing running

Resolved 💬 3 comments Opened May 21, 2026 by burka Closed Jun 20, 2026

Summary

The Claude Code built-in status line continues to display non-zero "shells" and "monitors" counters even when there are no background tasks, cron jobs, or monitor processes actually running. The counters appear to be sticky / not reset by /clear.

Repro

  1. Run a session that at some point spawns background bash tasks and/or Monitor watches.
  2. Let those tasks complete (or stop them).
  3. Run /clear.
  4. Observe the status line still shows e.g. 2 shells, 2 monitors.

Expected

After /clear, the counters should reflect the current state — 0 shells, 0 monitors when nothing is active.

Actual

Counter stays at the previous value indefinitely.

Evidence from this session

After /clear, the status line showed 2 shells, 2 monitors, but:

  • CronList → cleared (only one one-shot cron existed; deleted)
  • TaskList → "No tasks found"
  • ps -ef | grep -E 'tail -f|inotify|monitor|while true' → no matches

So no background work was actually live — the counter was stale.

Environment

  • Claude Code: Opus 4.7 in CLI
  • Platform: Linux 6.17.0-29-generic
  • Shell: bash

Impact

Cosmetic, but misleading — users (and Claude) cannot tell from the status line whether background work is genuinely active or the indicator is stuck.

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