Agent Park & Resume — Non-blocking suspension

Park & Resume turns the agent loop into something that can wait without blocking the terminal. Instead of the old bash sleep 300 pattern that locks the screen for 5 minutes, the agent emits a single @park tool call that:

Snapshots the loop state (history, counters, mode) to disk.
Frees the terminal — you can chat, list jobs, open another /coder.
Schedules the resume on the durable scheduler (survives crash/restart).
Auto-resumes by itself once the timer/poll completes, without you pressing Enter.

Available since chatcli 1.111.x (PR #879). Works in /coder, /agent and /run modes. Auto-resume uses TIOCSTI on Unix and WriteConsoleInputW on Windows; transparent fallback when the OS restricts the injection.

Flow overview

Why this is needed

Before park, waiting inside a /coder meant:

# bad — terminal locked, every agent turn is a "tool call"
bash sleep 300     # 5 minutes idle, you can't type anything
curl ...           # check CI
[ $? -eq 0 ] && ...

Problems:

Terminal blocked for the full 300 s.
Each bash call burns a turn of the agent’s turn budget (default 100).
CLI crash = lose the sleep and the state.
No audit trail — only in shell history.

With @park:

Terminal freed immediately; you keep using the CLI.
Park takes a single turn regardless of duration (10 s or 14 days).
Crash-safe — disk snapshot + scheduler WAL replay on boot.
Full audit via /jobs logs and /parked.

Four modes of `@park`

delay
until
for_url
for_cmd

Fixed timer. Single-shot. Ideal for “wait before checking again”.

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd": "delay",
  "args": {
    "duration": "5m",
    "note": "waiting for CI #1234"
  }
}' />

Field	Type	Required	Description
`duration`	string	✅	Go duration: `30s`, `5m`, `1h`. Max 14 days.
`note`	string	—	Human label shown in `/parked`.

Absolute wallclock or relative DSL. Single-shot.

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd": "until",
  "args": {
    "when": "2026-05-04T18:00:00Z",
    "note": "deploy window"
  }
}' />

Accepted formats in when:

RFC3339: 2026-05-04T18:00:00Z
Common layouts: 2006-01-02 15:04:05, 2006-01-02 15:04, 15:04
Relative: +5m, in 5m, after 30s, 5m

15:04 is projected onto today; if already passed, rolls to tomorrow.

HTTP polling until the response matches success_when (or the deadline elapses).

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd": "for_url",
  "args": {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/x/y/actions/runs/12345",
    "interval": "30s",
    "deadline": "15m",
    "method": "GET",
    "headers": {"Authorization": "Bearer ghp_..."},
    "success_when": "body contains:\"status\":\"completed\""
  }
}' />

Field	Required	Description
`url`	✅	http(s)://
`interval`	✅	Poll cadence (minimum 5 s)
`deadline`	✅	Maximum total wait (Go duration or RFC3339)
`method`	—	Defaults to `GET`
`headers`	—	Optional map
`success_when`	—	DSL — see Matchers. Empty = any 2xx

Shell-command polling until success_when matches (or the deadline elapses). Subject to the same security policy as @coder exec.

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd": "for_cmd",
  "args": {
    "cmd": "terraform plan -detailed-exitcode -no-color",
    "interval": "45s",
    "deadline": "20m",
    "success_when": "exit=0"
  }
}' />

Field	Required	Description
`cmd`	✅	Shell command — passes through `/coder` policy
`interval`	✅	Minimum 5 s
`deadline`	✅	Maximum total
`success_when`	—	DSL. Empty = exit code 0

`success_when` matchers

Free-form DSL. Empty assumes “default success” (HTTP 2xx or exit 0).

Form	Example	Meaning
`status=N`	`status=200`	Exact HTTP status
`status=lo..hi`	`status=200..299`	HTTP status in range
`exit=N`	`exit=0`	Exact shell exit code
`body contains:<str>`	`body contains:completed`	Substring on body/stdout
`body matches:<re>`	`body matches:^OK$`	Regex (Go regexp) on body/stdout

Multiple matchers in a single spec are not supported; combine using a custom body matches: if you need logic.

Management commands

/parked
/resume
/cancel-park
/park-note

Lists all on-disk parks with cross-checked scheduler job status.

❯ /parked
  Parked agents (token / mode / description / scheduler status):
    3e06f8d5  [delay] delay 10m — waiting for CI #1234
              resume_at=15:42:00  job=cc230eb0c9eafcf7 (queued)
              created=2026-05-04 15:32:00

    8b7e1234  [for_url] polling https://api.github.com/... every 30s
              resume_at=14:47:00 (deadline)  job=ab1234... (running)
              created=2026-05-04 14:32:00

Subcommands:

Command	Description
`/parked`	List (default)
`/parked prune`	Remove snapshots whose scheduler job is in a terminal state (completed/failed/cancelled/timed_out) — cleanup after resume
`/parked gc <duration>`	Remove snapshots older than `<duration>` regardless of status (e.g. `/parked gc 24h`)
`/parked help`	Show usage

Forces immediate resume (skips remaining wait).

❯ /resume 3e06f8d5
  ▶️  Agent resumed (token=3e06f8d5..., outcome=manual) — continuing from where it stopped.

Accepts a unique prefix of the token (8 chars usually enough), like git checkout abc123.

If auto-resume already consumed the token (common race), /resume <same-token> is silent (idempotent no-op). Errors only surface for genuinely invalid tokens. Detection TTL: 30 s after auto-resume.

Aborts a park: removes snapshot + cancels scheduler job.

❯ /cancel-park 3e06f8d5
  ✓ Park 3e06f8d5d984... cancelled and snapshot removed.

Idempotent: cancelling an already-consumed park just removes the file if present.

Sends a directive to the most recently parked agent of this session. Plain chat keeps working normally while an agent is parked — directing it is an explicit action:

❯ /park-note be more detailed in the next report
  💬 noted for the parked agent (resumes 18:44:09) — /resume b733521e to wake it now

The directive is persisted into the park snapshot (durable across restarts) and delivered as a user instruction right when the agent resumes — before it produces that cycle’s report. The first plain chat message you send while a park is waiting prints a one-line hint pointing to this command.

Mid-park directives

While an agent is parked the terminal is yours: plain text goes to normal chat, every command works, and you can even run another /coder task in parallel. To talk to the parked agent, use the explicit channels:

Channel	Who uses it	Effect
`/park-note <message>`	You, at the prompt	Directive stored in the snapshot; injected as a user instruction at resume
`@park list`	Any agent (tool call)	Lists every parked agent: token, mode, wait parameters, pending directive count
`@park note {token?, text}`	Any agent (tool call)	Same directive channel, cross-agent — newest park when `token` is omitted

This makes parked loops composable: a second agent investigating an incident can @park list, spot the monitoring loop parked for 10 minutes, and @park note it — “the deploy finished, validate and stop monitoring” or “switch your cycle to 5m”. The parked agent applies cadence changes itself on its next cycle, so scheduler ownership never leaves the loop that created the park. At resume time the agent receives the directives as a block:

[user directives received while you were parked]
- be more detailed in the next report

Address these directives in THIS cycle's report, before scheduling any further @park.

Auto-resume — how the terminal “wakes up by itself”

This is the part that distinguishes park from a plain scheduled task: when the wait completes, the agent returns to foreground without you doing anything.

Why TIOCSTI

TIOCSTI is a POSIX ioctl that injects bytes into the TTY’s input buffer as if the user had typed them. It works with any application reading stdin from the controlling tty — no need to modify go-prompt.

Why two bursts (body + 15 ms + \r)

go-prompt v0.2.6 uses bytes.Equal to classify keys (input.go:24). A multi-byte buffer like /resume abc\r doesn’t match any sequence in the ASCII table and falls into the default branch which inserts as text — including the trailing \r, which becomes literal and never submits. Solution: split.

Command body in one burst (multi-byte → text insertion).
15 ms pause (above readBuffer’s 10 ms poll cycle).
Lone \r in a second burst (single byte → matches ControlM → submits).

Windows uses WriteConsoleInputW

No TIOCSTI on Windows — kernel32.dll exposes WriteConsoleInputW which accepts structured INPUT_RECORD events. Each char becomes a key-down/key-up pair; the trailing Enter uses VirtualKeyCode=VK_RETURN so go-prompt’s reader classifies it as a native Enter.

Platform support matrix

Linux
macOS
Windows
BSDs

TIOCSTI gated by /proc/sys/dev/tty/legacy_tiocsti:

Kernel	Default	Auto-resume
Pre-5.16	TIOCSTI always enabled	✅ works
5.16+ server (Ubuntu LTS, RHEL)	`legacy_tiocsti=0`	✅ works
6.x+ desktop, Docker Desktop linuxkit	`legacy_tiocsti=1`	❌ EPERM, fallback active

To re-enable (root):

sudo sysctl -w dev.tty.legacy_tiocsti=0

Trade-off: re-enables a feature distros disabled because of CVE-2017-5226 (sandbox escape via injection). Safe in personal dev environments; on shared servers, prefer the fallback.

TIOCSTI gated by kern.tiocsti_disable:

Version	Default	Auto-resume
Pre-Ventura (macOS 12 and earlier)	`kern.tiocsti_disable=0`	✅
Ventura+ (macOS 13, 14, 15, 26)	`kern.tiocsti_disable=1`	❌ EPERM, fallback

Re-enable (sudo):

sudo sysctl -w kern.tiocsti_disable=0

Same as Linux — local decision, fine for personal dev, evaluate on shared environments.

WriteConsoleInputW is part of the conhost API and always available — no legacy_tiocsti equivalent. Auto-resume works in Windows Terminal and conhost.exe out of the box.

Console	Auto-resume
Windows Terminal	✅
conhost.exe (native cmd)	✅
Session without attached console (piped stdin)	❌ fallback (expected)

Fallback when TIOCSTI/WriteConsoleInput is unavailable

When the injection is rejected, the 🔔 park ready banner still shows up and the token enters the pendingResumeQueue. You need to type any character + Enter at the prompt — the executor consumes the queue before processing your input. Equivalent UX with one extra keystroke. The prompt prefix shows [🅿️ resume ready: N] ❯ while a resume is pending, so it’s hard to forget.

Real-world examples

GitHub Actions CI

❯ /coder
> push the branch and tell me when CI passes. If it passes, deploy via terraform.

Agent emits (abridged):

<tool_call name="@coder" args='{"cmd":"exec","args":{"cmd":"git push"}}' />
<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd":"for_url",
  "args":{
    "url":"https://api.github.com/repos/me/repo/actions/runs?branch=feature&per_page=1",
    "interval":"30s",
    "deadline":"20m",
    "headers":{"Authorization":"Bearer ghp_..."},
    "success_when":"body contains:\"conclusion\":\"success\""
  }
}' />

Terminal returns. You open another /coder to refactor tests in parallel. ~15 minutes later:

🔔 park ready: token=8b7e... outcome=matched
▶️ Agent resumed — continuing from where it stopped.
[agent] CI passed. Applying terraform...
<tool_call name="@coder" args='{"cmd":"exec","args":{"cmd":"terraform apply -auto-approve"}}' />

Slow terraform apply

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd":"for_cmd",
  "args":{
    "cmd":"terraform plan -detailed-exitcode -no-color",
    "interval":"45s",
    "deadline":"30m",
    "success_when":"exit=0"
  }
}' />

Important detail: terraform plan -detailed-exitcode returns 0 on no diff, 2 on diff present, 1 on error. Here we wait for 0 (convergence). To wait for “diff applied”, swap to success_when:exit=2.

Off-peak deploy window

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd":"until",
  "args":{
    "when":"2026-05-05T02:00:00-03:00",
    "note":"off-peak deploy"
  }
}' />

Agent sleeps until 02:00, resumes, and runs the deploy.

Post-rollout health check

<tool_call name="@park" args='{
  "cmd":"for_url",
  "args":{
    "url":"https://prod.example.com/healthz",
    "interval":"15s",
    "deadline":"5m",
    "success_when":"status=200..299"
  }
}' />

Security model

Approving @park = approving the polling

When the agent emits @park for_cmd cmd="echo done", /coder shows the security check with the full args, including the embedded cmd:

🔒 SECURITY CHECK
 ⚡ Action:  @park
            {"cmd":"for_cmd","args":{"cmd":"echo done","interval":"5s",...}}

When you answer [y], you are pre-authorizing the polling shell to run that specific cmd you just saw. ChatCLI propagates DangerousConfirmed=true on the scheduler job, so the poll’s fire-time recheck does not stumble on ShellPolicyAsk (no human at the keyboard at fire time to approve again).

Denylist always wins. Even with the interactive approval, commands matching Deny rules in your coder policy are rejected at fire time. See Coder Security.

Snapshots are 0o600

~/.chatcli/parked/<token>.json contains the park’s full chat history. Files are created with 0o600 (owner-only) and the directory with 0o700. Snapshots never leak to other users on the host.

Token cannot path-traverse

Tokens are generated with crypto/rand (16 bytes hex = 32 chars) and validated against regex [a-zA-Z0-9._-]{8,128}. There is no way for /resume ../etc/passwd to escape the directory.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
`CHATCLI_PARK_DIR`	`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/chatcli/parked`	Override of the snapshot directory — useful for tests

Most behavior is governed by the underlying scheduler — see Scheduler env vars.

Internals — for hackers

Snapshot format

JSON serialized with json.MarshalIndent. Versioned schema (SchemaVersion = 1). Main fields:

{
  "version": 1,
  "token": "3e06f8d5d984152a48f50f1c734380fd",
  "created_at": "2026-05-04T15:32:00Z",
  "history": [...],
  "is_coder_mode": true,
  "provider": "ANTHROPIC",
  "model": "claude-opus-4-7",
  "park": {
    "mode": "delay",
    "delay": 600000000000,
    "note": "waiting for CI"
  },
  "scheduler_job_id": "cc230eb0c9eafcf7",
  "pending_tool_call_id": "tu_abc123"
}

pending_tool_call_id is the Anthropic native tool_use ID — preserved to reconstruct the tool_use/tool_result pairing on resume (otherwise the next API request rejects with unmatched tool_call).

Scheduler action types

Park introduces 2 action types:

Type	Payload	Triggers
`agent_resume`	`{resume_token, outcome, detail}`	Bridge.NotifyParkComplete → drainPendingResumes → RunResumed
`park_poll`	`{resume_token, mode, url\|cmd, interval, deadline_unix, success_when, ...}`	Probe → matched? AgentResume : reschedule self

park_poll self-reschedules every interval until match or deadline elapses. Crash-safe via WAL replay — an interrupted iteration resumes on boot.

/resume idempotency

Auto-resume injects /resume <token>\r via TIOCSTI. But the executor already ran the resume on the first line (drainPendingResumes), so when the /resume <token> command reaches the handler the snapshot was already deleted. Solution: markRecentlyResumed(token) on drain (TTL 30 s) and wasRecentlyResumed(token) in handleResumeCommand → silent no-op. Genuinely invalid tokens (user typos) still surface as errors because the TTL is short.

Troubleshooting

Auto-resume doesn't fire — I see the 🔔 banner but nothing happens

Most common cause: legacy_tiocsti=1 on Linux or kern.tiocsti_disable=1 on macOS. The banner is printed by the bridge but the injection was rejected by the kernel.Check:

# Linux
cat /proc/sys/dev/tty/legacy_tiocsti

# macOS
sysctl kern.tiocsti_disable

If it returns 1, either enable (see Platform matrix) or use the fallback: type any character + Enter at the prompt and the drain consumes the resume.

park: no snapshot matching '<token>'

You’re using the job ID (second column of /parked) instead of the token (first column). Tokens have 8 visible chars in /parked; job IDs are scheduler-internal.Always copy from the first column of /parked or use auto-complete (Tab).

Park stuck in (failed) on /parked

Check /jobs show <job_id>. Common causes:

echo done (or any cmd) classified Ask without DangerousConfirmed: should be propagated automatically; report as a bug.
Persistent HTTP 5xx in for_url: each poll fails, scheduler may mark the job as failed after N retries. Increase interval or deadline.
Denylisted shell command: a Deny rule in the coder policy always wins, even with approval. See /config security rules.

Snapshots accumulating in ~/.chatcli/parked/

Use /parked prune to remove snapshots whose job is terminal (completed/failed/cancelled/timed_out). On long-running systems, consider periodic /parked gc 24h.

How do I tell which controlling TTY receives the injection?

tty

Shows /dev/pts/N (Linux) or /dev/ttysNNN (macOS). That’s the fd injectTTYLine opens via /dev/tty.

Quick reference

# Tool inside the agent (XML/JSON envelope)
<tool_call name="@park" args='{"cmd":"<delay|until|for_url|for_cmd>","args":{...}}' />

# Management commands
/parked                         # list
/parked prune                   # clean terminals
/parked gc 24h                  # clean old
/resume <token>                 # force resume
/cancel-park <token>            # abort + remove

# success_when DSL (for_url and for_cmd)
status=200            # exact HTTP
status=200..299       # HTTP range
exit=0                # shell exit
body contains:done    # substring
body matches:^OK$     # regex

For background on the scheduler that powers park, see Scheduler. For the security policy on @coder exec, see Coder Security.

Home

Getting Started

Core Concepts

Features

Security

Support

Agent Park & Resume — Non-blocking suspension

Flow overview

Why this is needed

Four modes of `@park`

`success_when` matchers

Management commands

Mid-park directives

Auto-resume — how the terminal “wakes up by itself”

Why TIOCSTI

Why two bursts (body + 15 ms + \r)

Windows uses WriteConsoleInputW

Platform support matrix

Fallback when TIOCSTI/WriteConsoleInput is unavailable

Real-world examples

GitHub Actions CI

Slow terraform apply

Off-peak deploy window

Post-rollout health check

Security model

Approving @park = approving the polling

Snapshots are 0o600

Token cannot path-traverse

Environment variables

Internals — for hackers

Snapshot format

Scheduler action types

/resume idempotency

Troubleshooting

Quick reference

​Flow overview

​Why this is needed

​Four modes of @park

​success_when matchers

​Management commands

​Mid-park directives

​Auto-resume — how the terminal “wakes up by itself”

​Why TIOCSTI

​Why two bursts (body + 15 ms + \r)

​Windows uses WriteConsoleInputW

​Platform support matrix

​Fallback when TIOCSTI/WriteConsoleInput is unavailable

​Real-world examples

​GitHub Actions CI

​Slow terraform apply

​Off-peak deploy window

​Post-rollout health check

​Security model

​Approving @park = approving the polling

​Snapshots are 0o600

​Token cannot path-traverse

​Environment variables

​Internals — for hackers

​Snapshot format

​Scheduler action types

​/resume idempotency

​Troubleshooting

​Quick reference

Flow overview

Why this is needed

Four modes of `@park`

`success_when` matchers

Management commands

Mid-park directives

Auto-resume — how the terminal “wakes up by itself”

Why TIOCSTI

Why two bursts (body + 15 ms + \r)

Windows uses WriteConsoleInputW

Platform support matrix

Fallback when TIOCSTI/WriteConsoleInput is unavailable

Real-world examples

GitHub Actions CI

Slow terraform apply

Off-peak deploy window

Post-rollout health check

Security model

Approving @park = approving the polling

Snapshots are 0o600

Token cannot path-traverse

Environment variables

Internals — for hackers

Snapshot format

Scheduler action types

/resume idempotency

Troubleshooting

Quick reference