Claude Design (desktop app) pauses when the window loses focus — it should keep running in the background

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Jun 17, 2026 by afram123 Closed Jun 20, 2026

What's happening

The new Claude Design feature in the desktop app pauses/interrupts its work as soon as I leave or switch away from its window. If I'm not actively staring at the Design view, it stops making progress.

Why this is a problem

Design runs can take a long time — easily ~30 minutes. Expecting someone to sit and watch a single window for half an hour, doing nothing else, isn't realistic. The whole point of the desktop app is that I can have multiple things going at once: a few Claude sessions, a Claude Code tab, other work — and let a long-running task like Design finish in the background while I'm productive elsewhere.

Forcing me to stay parked on the Design tab means I just won't use Design in the desktop app at all. A background-capable feature that refuses to run in the background defeats its own purpose.

What I'd expect

Claude Design should keep running when its window loses focus / I switch to another tab or session, the same way any long-running task should. Pausing on blur shouldn't be the default (if it's intentional at all, make it opt-in).

Impact: As-is, this blocks me from using Claude Design in the desktop app despite wanting to.

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