[Stener1]

Summary

A shell Claude leaves running in the background stayed Running in the chat's "Left running in the background" panel after it exited: its timer kept growing and the chip kept saying "2 shells running". For a chat (structured) agent, its shells never ended at all.

Two causes, both in internal/transcript:

 unwrapHost(system/task_notification)          # a chat agent's stream says a shell ended here
   -> queue-operation note
 claudeParser.line(queue-operation)
-  helperDone(note)                            # the crew heard it; the shells never did
+  taskNotified(note)                          # one handler: helpers and shells
+    helperDone(note)
+    jobNote(note)                             # now with the summary's exit code
 claudeSignals(user line)
-  if !bytes.Contains(line, "<task-notification>") return
+  if !bytes.Contains(line, "task-notification") return   # berthd's log writes "<" as <

And a fallback that doesn't wait for any notification (a busy agent is told only when its turn ends):

Reader.Follow (each poll)
  settle()
    for each running shell with an output file in a tasks folder
      if its last non-empty line is "[exited with code N]"
        state = N == 0 ? done : failed, exit = N, until = the file's time
  (the end stays the file's to take back: more output after the line runs it again;
   a notification, when one comes, has the last word, e.g. Stopped)

The panel shows the code and freezes the duration:

 <BackgroundChip>                 "1 shell running" — counts only what runs; "2 finished" for 5 min after
   <JobRow>
-    <State>  Done | Failed | Stopped
+    <State>  Done · exit 0 (grey) | Failed · exit 3 (red) | Stopped
-    took = (until ?? now) - since
+    took = jobTook(job, now)     # frozen once it ended

Job gains exit (omitted until known); an older app ignores it.

Evidence

Live, on a dev box of this checkout with a structured Claude Code (verify-berthd → chat-background-shells-live): Claude starts sleep 20; echo hi and sleep 6; exit 3 in the background.

• Before (main's berthd, same scenario): 22 s in, both have exited, both still Running, chip "2 shells running". The scenario fails at Failed · exit 3.
  
• After (this branch): Failed · exit 3 while the other runs; then Done · exit 0 21 s after the start (the shell sleeps 20 s); output hi readable; durations stay at 20s and 6s over 20 s; the box's own transcript signals say done exit 0 and failed exit 3; the chip says "2 finished".
  
  
• Mock (chat-background-shells): gpu/judge-v2's panel shows Running, Done · exit 0, Failed · exit 3, and the ended durations don't move across a clock tick.
  

Tests (each fails without its half of the fix):

TestABackgroundShellEndsWhenTheStreamSaysSo        host log, task_notification only -> done exit 0 / failed exit 3
TestAShellsNotificationInTheLogsOwnEscapingEndsIt   host log, prompt notification written by Go's JSON -> done
TestAShellEndsWhenItsOutputSaysItExited             [exited with code 0|3] last -> done|failed, file time;
                                                    mid-file -> running; no file -> running; monitor -> running;
                                                    a later "killed" notification -> stopped; same Reader, file grows -> done
TestAShellsExitCodeIsTheNotificationsOwn            `echo 'exit code 3'` completed (exit code 0) -> done exit 0
TestAShellsOutputFileOnlyEndsItWhileItSaysSo        printed the line and went on -> running again; a FIFO there is never opened
background-work.test.ts                             chip counts only running; badge text; frozen duration

Checks: go vet ./... and go test -race ./... pass on the final commit (an earlier run on a loaded box flaked in TestDetach, which fails on main too, and two timing tests that then passed 25/25 and 3/3 alone). App: typecheck:plugins, check:titles, check:type, check:grid, check:csp, check:themes, pnpm test (632 pass), pnpm build, tsc -p e2e; docs build. cargo check not run (no Rust change; this box lacks the GTK libraries).

Codex review and adversarial review: three findings (exit code read from the command text, a FIFO at the output path blocking the reader, a printed marker ending a running shell for good), each fixed with a test above; the re-review found nothing.

verify-berthd gets features/chat-background-shells.md, its map row, and both scenarios.

Merge Danger

Door: two-way

Read-only: it changes how the box reads a conversation and its tasks' output files, and how the app shows them. It writes nothing.

Blast Radius: chat's background panel

The box now reads at most 256 bytes of each still-running shell's output file per conversation read (a regular .output file in a tasks folder only, looked at before it is opened). A shell that prints [exited with code N] itself shows ended until it prints more or its notification comes; Claude Code writes that line on exit.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[vercel]

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[Stener1]

I can't add the run-ci label from this account (no permission on the repo). Could a maintainer add it? The checks from AGENTS.md pass locally; the PR body lists them.