[Bug] Duplicate Remote Control sessions created with identical task names on single local prompt

Bug Description

Four extra sessions with an identical task name appeared on the Remote Control surface after a single local prompt

Claude Code version: 2.1.241
Platform: macOS 15 / Darwin 25.5.0, zsh
Model: Opus 5 (1M context)
Date observed: 2026-08-24

What happened

I typed one prompt ("Implement the solution for ticket 1155") in one interactive session on one machine. I did not start any Remote Control session, and did not run the task on any other device.

Partway through the work, ListAgents from inside that session reported four additional peer sessions carrying the identical task name, all on the Remote Control surface:

implement ticket 1155 [d83b48]  ·  Remote Control  ·  pending
implement ticket 1155 [e96708]  ·  Remote Control  ·  idle
implement ticket 1155 [8d59a2]  ·  Remote Control  ·  idle
implement ticket 1155 [7ee196]  ·  Remote Control  ·  idle

(The session doing the actual work was a fifth, [3b9784], listed separately as "this session".)

What I could confirm

• None of the four did any work. Only one branch exists on the git remote — the one from the session I actually prompted. Three were idle; one had never started (pending).
• The duplicate-name pattern is not unique to this task. The same ListAgents output listed 294 Remote Control sessions total, with many repeated task names:

| Task name | Sessions |
|---|---|
| ai-scan-implementation-plans | 20 |
| multi-family child grouping | 18 |
| ai-scan | 14 |
| done-review-PR-771-release-infrastructure | 10 |
| ticket-1054-implement | 9 |
| implement ticket 1155 | 4 |
| code review mentor | 4 |

• ~/.claude/settings.json had "remoteControlAtStartup": true. That plausibly explains why sessions are labeled Remote Control. It does not explain why four of them exist.

Environment Info

• Platform: darwin
• Terminal: xterm-256color
• Version: 2.1.241
• Feedback ID: 741f808a-fd0a-4d29-aea0-9ecf8086b4cb

Errors

[]