Skip to content

WhatsApp messaging goes out of sync when background sub-agents are running #342

@williamjameshandley

Description

@williamjameshandley

Description

When background sub-agents are launched (via Claude Code Agent tool with run_in_background), the WhatsApp message loop gets out of sync. Messages sent during background agent execution may not be processed in order, or the main conversation loses track of the message sequence.

Steps to reproduce

  1. User sends a message via WhatsApp
  2. Main agent launches background sub-agents (e.g. 5 parallel agents for bulk GTD operations)
  3. User sends further messages while agents are running
  4. Messages arrive out of order or the conversation state becomes inconsistent

Observed behaviour

  • Permission requests (e.g. filesystem access) appeared that seemed unrelated to the current conversation
  • The main agent lost sync with the WhatsApp message stream
  • User had to point out the conversation was "out of sync"

Expected behaviour

Background sub-agents should not interfere with the main WhatsApp message loop processing.

Context

Occurred during a session where 5 parallel agents were launched to summarise 50 MacKay ITILA chapters, each making GTD MCP calls. The main conversation continued via WhatsApp during this time.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions