[FEATURE] Auto-terminate inactive Claude Code session processes in VS Code

[cheolho-kang]

Environment

• Claude CLI version: 2.1.72 (VS Code Extension)
• Operating System: macOS 15 (Apple Silicon)
• Terminal: VS Code integrated

Feature Description

When using Claude Code in VS Code, previous conversation sessions remain as live background processes even after switching to a new session. Over time, this causes significant memory consumption with no benefit.

In my case, I found 12 concurrent Claude processes running (~880MB total), even though I was only actively using one session. These included sessions from days ago and even from a previous extension version (v2.1.63).

Current Behavior

• Starting a new conversation spawns a new claude process
• Switching away from a session does not terminate the previous process
• Old sessions accumulate indefinitely until VS Code is reloaded or processes are manually killed
• Processes persist even across extension version upgrades

Expected Behavior

• Only the currently active session should have a running process
• Inactive sessions should be suspended/terminated automatically
• Selecting a past session from the session list should resume/restart the process on demand

Suggested Approach

One or more of:

1. Auto-terminate inactive sessions after a configurable timeout (e.g. 5–10 minutes)
2. Suspend on switch — terminate the previous session's process when the user switches to a different one
3. Add a VS Code setting like claudeCode.maxConcurrentSessions to limit background processes

Evidence

12 claude processes running simultaneously, only 1 actively in use:

$ ps aux -m | grep 'claude.*native-binary' | grep -v grep
user  88218  13.5  0.7  508MB  130MB  S  11:09AM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A  # <-- only active session
user  30082   0.1  0.4  509MB   77MB  S  10:44PM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  78669   0.1  0.4  509MB   72MB  S  10:54AM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  17955   0.2  0.4  509MB   72MB  S  Thu03PM  v2.1.63  --add-dir workspace-B  # old extension version
user  28484   0.3  0.4  509MB   71MB  S   8:53PM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  95333   0.0  0.4  509MB   69MB  S   9:43PM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  96795   0.2  0.4  509MB   66MB  S  Fri01PM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  85619   0.0  0.4  509MB   66MB  S  Thu10AM  v2.1.63  --add-dir workspace-B  # old extension version
user  22887   0.1  0.4  509MB   66MB  S  Sun03PM  v2.1.63  --add-dir workspace-B
user   1983   0.1  0.4  509MB   65MB  S  Thu07AM  v2.1.63  --add-dir workspace-B  # running for 3+ days
user  96440   0.0  0.3  509MB   62MB  S  Fri01PM  v2.1.69  --add-dir workspace-A
user  91356   0.0  0.3  509MB   62MB  S  Thu10PM  v2.1.63  --add-dir workspace-B

• Total RSS: ~880MB for 12 processes, only 1 in use
• Sessions from 3+ days ago still alive (PID 1983, started Thu07AM)
• Processes from old extension version (v2.1.63) persist even after upgrading to v2.1.69

[github-actions]

Found 3 possible duplicate issues:

1. [BUG] Multiple processes not cleaned up after finishing agent task #30351
2. [BUG] VS Code extension leaks processes on /clear + new chat (native Windows), causing pagefile to consume 11+ GB disk space #29413
3. [BUG] Memory leak: multiple Claude processes accumulate 11GB+ RSS on Ubuntu 25.10 (kernel 6.17) #25855

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[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically locked since it was closed and has not had any activity for 7 days. If you're experiencing a similar issue, please file a new issue and reference this one if it's relevant.