Scheduled Tasks: auto-close session after task completion

[jakobwechselberger]

Problem

Scheduled tasks leave their sessions open indefinitely after the agent finishes all work. The user must manually /exit or archive each session from the sidebar.

Running multiple daily cron tasks (smoke tests, imports, briefings) creates zombie sessions that need manual cleanup every morning.

Current behavior

1. Scheduled task fires at cron time
2. Agent completes all work (writes results to DB, no more actions needed)
3. Session stays open in sidebar with spinning indicator
4. User must manually close each completed session

Desired behavior

Sessions spawned by scheduled tasks should auto-terminate once the agent has no more work to do. Possible implementations:

• autoClose: true frontmatter in SKILL.md — close session when agent stops generating
• maxDuration: 300 frontmatter — timeout in seconds, session terminates after that
• Built-in exit tool the agent can call to programmatically end its own session

Workaround attempted

Adding explicit "terminate immediately" instructions to the task prompt. The agent stops talking but the session remains open — this is a platform-level issue, not solvable via prompt.

Environment

• Claude Code Desktop (Windows 11)
• Multiple recurring cron tasks (daily smoke test, daily import, daily briefing)

[G3n3s1sDa3m0n]

Confirming this on Windows 11. Measured claude.exe process count growing by exactly +1 per scheduled task tick over 15 minutes (10 → 26). After several days of a 1-minute cron, accumulated 375+ orphaned bash.exe and 70+ claude.exe processes, causing significant system degradation. Closing Claude Code Desktop does NOT terminate them — required full reboot. Workaround: reduced cron to every 5 minutes, but root cause remains.

[github-actions]

Closing for now — inactive for too long. Please open a new issue if this is still relevant.

[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.