Spawned child process (versioned binary) grew to 12.3 GB RSS and was OOM-killed

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Jun 5, 2026 by green-solutions-tourinfra Closed Jun 9, 2026

Version: 2.1.165 (native installer, WSL2/Ubuntu 24.x, kernel 6.6.114.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2)

What happened:
During normal usage (2 parallel interactive sessions, one running subagent tasks), a Claude Code child process — spawned via the real versioned binary path ~/.local/share/claude/versions/2.1.165, hence kernel comm 2.1.165 — grew to ~12.3 GB RSS / ~17 GB total-vm and was OOM-killed (WSL2 VM capped at 20 GB + 8 GB swap, swap 100% full). Both parent sessions survived the kill.

Expected:
Normal footprint observed for such spawned children is single-digit MB; main interactive sessions ~0.5 GB RSS.

Repro of the spawn mechanism (not the leak itself):
Running any subagent shows a transient child with comm 2.1.165 in ps (i.e. children are exec'd via the real versioned binary path, while symlink-launched sessions show comm claude).

Environment notes:

  • MCP servers configured: playwright (npx), 2x JetBrains stdio/SSE proxies
  • The OOM coincided with subagent activity in one of the two sessions

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