Background

A Claude contact can leave things running while it carries on: a command started in the background, such as a dev server or gh run watch, or a watcher that tells it whenever something happens. The Background tab lists them, with what each one printed, in the pane beside the conversation.

Opening it. Click Background in the toolbar, choose File > View background tasks, press ⇧⌘K (Ctrl+Shift+K on Linux and Windows), or click the + after the pane's last tab. A second click on the toolbar's button puts the tab away.

• The button wears the number of tasks that are running.
• In the conversation, the line "Claude started npm run dev in the background" has a View in Background link. It goes to that task's row, and opens it.

A row for every task. The ones that run come first, in the order they started.

• Under its name it says that it runs, or how it ended: Claude's own words where it gave them, such as completed (exit code 0). Next to its name are its kind, Command or Watcher, and how long it has run.
• Click a row for what it runs and the end of what it printed. While it runs, that is read again every two seconds, and stays at the bottom unless you scroll up.
• Stop ends that one task. Claude is told, and carries on: the turn is not stopped.
• A task that has ended stays listed, under the ones that run, until you start a new conversation.

Good to know:

• What runs in the background is not Claude at work. The contact list shows the contact as Online, with "A command running in the background" under its name, and the status bar says the same: a dev server can run all day.
• A watcher can wake Claude up. When it reports something, Claude may answer without you sending anything, as it does when a subagent reports.
• What Claude leaves running ends with its Claude Code: when you quit the app, start a new conversation, or Claude switches accounts. It is then listed as stopped.
• Only the last 8 KB of what a task printed can be read: that is what Claude Code keeps of it.
• A task's output can't be read any more once its Claude Code has ended. What you read before then stays on show.
• Subagents are not listed here: they have a tab of their own.
• In a group conversation, everyone's tasks are listed, each with whose it is.
• Codex, Gemini, OpenCode and Hermes don't say what they leave running, so their conversations have no Background button.
• In the live demo and in demo mode, a message with "background" in it has a Claude contact start a scripted dev server and a watcher on CI. The watcher ends after a few seconds; the dev server runs until you stop it.