Plannotator process are being left in the background

[GertBurger]

I'm trying to use plannotator from claude code using the official plugin.

After using it for some time I noticed a whole lot of plannotator processes. plannotator sessions shows a list of supposed sessions that were created... yet I have no open plannotator windows.

So far my flow has been to /plannotator-review whenever there are changes I want to look at. Sometimes I send feedback but often I just ctrl-w the browser window if I don't have any feedback.

Is this not supported?

[Sagargupta16]

Ctrl+W does not end a review. Each /plannotator-review starts a server process that waits for your decision, and closing the tab is not one, so the process and its plannotator sessions entry stay. The troubleshooting page says the same under Lost a Plannotator tab?.

When you have no feedback, click Close in the review header (the X beside Approve, tooltip "Close review without feedback"). It posts to /api/exit, the review is recorded as dismissed and the process exits (review.ts, index.ts). Approve with no notes ends it as well.

For the sessions already piled up:

plannotator sessions            # list them
plannotator sessions --open 2   # reopen #2, then click Close
plannotator sessions --json     # includes each session's pid, if you would rather kill them

plannotator sessions --clean will not clear them. It only removes entries whose process is already gone.

They pile up because nothing times a review out when the Plannotator mod is on (Claude Code 2.1.287 or newer). Without the mod, Claude Code stops the review command itself after about 32 minutes (Long reviews). This is from the source and docs at v0.28.60. I have not run it.

[GertBurger]

I did ask my llm the question first and got a similar response, it however doesn't answer the UX question...

[Sagargupta16]

Fair. The direct answer: no, closing the tab is not a supported way to end a review today. Nothing in review mode notices the tab going away, so the server keeps waiting for a decision.

Plannotator already does what you expected in one place. Since #1143, plannotator annotate --gate --json keeps a connection open from the tab, and when the last tab disconnects it waits 30 seconds for a reload, then ends the session as dismissed (annotate-client-lease.ts). The review server (review.ts) has no such lease, which is why your Ctrl+W tabs pile up.

So "close the tab = no feedback" is a reasonable feature request: ask for the #1143 client lease to cover /plannotator-review as well. Until then, Close in the review header is the one-click equivalent of Ctrl+W.