no-polling-agents

No Polling for Background Agents

When launching parallel background agents, do NOT poll with sleep loops.

Pattern

Background agents write to status files when complete. Wait for them naturally.

DO

• Launch agents with run_in_background: true
• Continue with other work while agents run
• Check status file only when user asks or when you need results to proceed
• Trust the agent completion system

DON'T

• Run sleep 10 && cat status.txt in loops
• Continuously poll for completion
• Waste tokens checking status repeatedly
• Block on agents unless absolutely necessary

When to Check Status

1. User explicitly asks "are they done?"
2. You need agent output to proceed with next task
3. Significant time has passed and user is waiting

Example

// Launch agents
Task({ ..., run_in_background: true })
Task({ ..., run_in_background: true })

// Continue with other work or conversation
// Agents will write to status file when done

// Only check when needed
cat .claude/cache/status.txt

Source

User feedback: "You can just wait until everyone pings you"