Does a background run keep working if I close the panel?

Yes. Runs belong to the workspace, not to one conversation or one open panel, and that persistence is the entire point of delegating work rather than doing it inline.

Can I watch a run without taking it over?

Yes. Opening a run’s transcript as a session is read-only: mode, effort, and auto-approve controls are visible but disabled, because that conversation is not yours to steer.

Does a stalled run block other work?

No. A run blocked on a person, waiting for your approval or an answer, releases its concurrency slot while it waits, so it doesn’t tie up a worker just because it’s stalled on you.

What happens to a finished run’s output?

It drops into your composer as a draft. Nothing is sent on your behalf: you still have to review it and send it yourself, or dismiss it from the drawer.

Hand off a job and keep working.

Delegation is only worth doing if the parent conversation is never blocked. A background run gets its own child session and is owned by the workspace rather than the panel, so closing the view does not kill the work.

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general · write allowed

ReadyDelegate a job

How it works

A delegated job runs in its own session. Your conversation stays usable, and the run survives the panel being closed, hidden or reloaded.

Start it from the drawer

Type / and choose /background, pick a delegate, describe the job, and choose whether to wait for it. Each delegate row states whether it can write, because that is the moment you are choosing blast radius.

Watch it without steering it

Open a run’s transcript as a session and follow along. That view is deliberately read-only: mode, effort and auto-approve are shown disabled, because that conversation is not yours to steer.

Live status, not a spinner

Every run reports where it actually is: queued, starting, running, awaiting approval, awaiting a question, then succeeded, failed or cancelled.

Take the result when it lands

A finished run drops its answer into your composer draft. It is never sent on your behalf. You can also cancel, follow up, or dismiss it.

Delegating one job, start to finish

You open the drawer

/background

You choose a delegate and describe the job

Each delegate option states its write capability up front, so you know the blast radius before committing. You then decide whether to wait for the result or keep working.

It runs in its own session

The job is owned by the workspace, not your panel. Closing the view, hiding it, or reloading the window does not kill the run. Status updates as it actually happens: queued, starting, running, awaiting approval, awaiting a question, then a terminal state.

You take the result when it lands

A finished run drops its output into your composer as a draft. It is never auto-sent: you still send it yourself, after reading it.

ML.ai Code

/background

Delegate a job

general

Can write

Carries out a well-defined task end to end.

explore

Read-only

Searches and explains, changes nothing.

Write capability shown before you commit to a run.

Waiting for a delegate to be chosen

Worth knowing

Runs belong to the workspace, not one conversation, so the drawer lists every run with the current conversation’s first.
A run blocked on a person rather than the engine releases its concurrency slot.
Isolated runs in a separate git worktree are experimental and off by default.

Questions worth asking

Agents

Choose a subagent for the composer and it stays selected until you remove or replace it. Each one is built for a different kind of work, and only general carries out changes end to end.

Plan mode

Plan is genuinely restricted, not a suggestion. The edit and write tools are denied to it, and a stricter command budget applies.

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