All sessions appear as background agents; subagents stall 100% of the time

Status Open
Reported on v2.1.205
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 4 comments · opened Jul 9, 2026

Environment

  • Claude Code version: 2.1.205
  • OS: Linux (Ubuntu, 6.8.0-124-generic)
  • Model: claude-opus-4-6
  • Launch: interactive terminal session via wrapper that sets env vars and calls the claude executable normally (with --verbose)

Bug 1: Every session registers as a background agent

Every interactive Claude Code session appears in the "agents" menu as if it were a background agent. There is no way to distinguish between actual background jobs and normal interactive sessions. This happens regardless of how the session is launched — no --background flag, no special configuration.

Expected: Interactive sessions should not appear in the agents menu. Only explicitly backgrounded jobs should show there.

Actual: Every session is listed in the agents menu as a background agent.

Bug 2: Subagents stall out 100% of the time, doubling token usage

When Claude spawns a subagent (via the Agent tool), the subagent consistently stalls — it consumes tokens but produces no usable result. Claude then has to redo all the work the subagent was supposed to handle, effectively doubling the token usage for that portion of the task.

This happens 100% of the time anything related to agents is used. The subagents appear to run and consume budget, but their results never make it back to the parent session in a usable way.

Expected: Subagents complete their work and return results to the parent session.

Actual: Subagents stall, burn tokens, and Claude must redo everything they attempted.

Impact

Both issues together significantly degrade the experience:

  • The agents menu becomes useless noise
  • Token usage is effectively doubled any time agent delegation is involved
  • Users lose trust in the agent system and avoid using it, even when it would be the right tool

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3 Comments

dtitov1 · 18 days ago

I see similar issue on Windows, build 2.1.228 - all sessions are classified as 'background' and hit the background isolation rules (with any file edit triggering a worktree and branch creation).

Impact: makes work much slower and consumes more tokens.

Repro steps:

  1. Have a local folder with git checkout. Cd to that folder.
  2. Run 'claude' without parameters in command line of Power Shell
  3. CLI starts into agents window, asks for instructions for new task, then creates a background job and attaches to it.
  4. Result: no interactive job

Alternative steps, with different behavior:

  1. Have a local folder with git checkout. Cd to that folder.
  2. Run 'claude [new_name]' in command line of Power Shell
  3. CLI starts in interactive mode (!) with a new job named new_name. Checked by /status.
  4. Switch to agent view and back - the /status starts to tell the job is 'background' so somehow it gets re-classified.
lubokkanev · 17 days ago

Gettings this on MacOS as well. Forks are also classified as 'background' and can't be easily resumed.

SHGoldfarb · 10 days ago

Running into this too, MacOS on the latest version 2.1.238. Disabling background isolation is a working workaround but not ideal, since this is an useful feature for jobs that are actually background.

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