Task chips (spawn_task) invisible and unmanageable to the assistant after compaction or from another session

Status Open
Reported on v2.1.260
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Sep 12, 2026

Environment: Claude Code 2.1.260 in the Claude Desktop app (macOS, Code tab), desktop app 1.52386.3.

What happens: Task chips created with the session tool spawn_task are visible and manageable only to the exact session context that created them. After that session compacts, or in any later session on the same project, the model has no way to list the chips the user is looking at, and dismiss_task only accepts ids from its own session. Today the user's UI shows 10 accumulated chips; the assistant cannot see, enumerate, or withdraw any of them, and can only ask the user to paste their titles.

Why it matters: chips are meant to be a shared to-do surface between the user and the assistant. Once the assistant loses sight of them they silently go stale (several of ours were already shipped), and the user has to reconcile them by hand. The only workaround we found was keeping a manual backup list in memory files, which defeats the purpose.

Expected:

  1. A list_tasks (or equivalent) tool that returns the project's current chips (id, title, tldr, state, creating session) regardless of which session created them.
  2. dismiss_task accepting any chip id in the project, or at least any chip the current user can see.
  3. Chips surviving compaction within a session: a compacted session should still be able to reference the ids it created.

Repro: in a Desktop Code-tab session, call spawn_task a few times; let the session compact (or open a new session in the same project); ask the assistant to list or dismiss the chips. It cannot.

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