Claude.app desktop: dispatched task subprocesses accumulate without cleanup (150+ processes / ~31 GB RAM)

Summary

The Claude desktop app (/Applications/Claude.app) spawns child processes for dispatched tasks via the bundled Claude Code CLI, but does not reap them when the tasks complete. Over ~38 hours of uptime with regular dispatch usage, 156 direct children accumulated, totaling 312 processes and ~31 GB resident memory.

Environment

• Hardware: Mac mini (M4, 32 GB RAM)
• macOS: 26.3.1 (build 25D771280a)
• Claude.app version: 1.8555.0
• Bundled Claude Code CLI: 2.1.146 (at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/2.1.146/claude.app/Contents/MacOS/claude)

Reproduction

1. Launch /Applications/Claude.app.
2. Use the dispatch feature multiple times over a session lasting hours/days.
3. Inspect process tree:

``
ps -Ao pid,ppid,rss,command | grep 'claude-code/.*claude\.app'
``

Observed

• 156 processes with PPID equal to the main Claude.app PID, all running:

``
/Applications/Claude.app/Contents/Helpers/disclaimer
/Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude-code/2.1.146/claude.app/Contents/MacOS/claude --output-format ...
``

• Including their own subprocess fan-out: 312 total processes, ~31 GB RSS.
• RSS grows linearly with dispatch invocations; no decrease observed even when dispatched tasks have clearly completed.
• Quitting Claude.app reaps the entire tree and reclaims the memory.

Expected

Dispatched-task subprocesses should exit and be reaped when their work completes.

Secondary issue (possibly related)

Squirrel auto-updater (Claude.app/Contents/Frameworks/Squirrel.framework/Resources/ShipIt) prompts for admin permission on every interactive (VNC) login. Suspect the update never finalizes because Claude.app is always running, so ShipIt re-prompts indefinitely. Happy to file separately if preferred.