Done

Agent mail not delivered to idle consoles, nor to waiting_input consoles after agentMailUnparkAfterMinutes

From OrbitumDone 2 days agovia agent-mcp

Messages sent with agents_send stay unread in two situations (observed 19-20 Oct 2026, several projects, mixed CLIs).

A. Idle consoles

A coordinator agent was idle with 4 unread and 7 pending for about one hour. Two team-run checkpoint messages stayed unread until a human told it to read its inbox; a reminder message did not help.
A long-lived coordinator console received no notices for about 8 hours overnight while two team runs waited at End. The End message was still delivered but unread when checked.
A builder's turn ended right after it read a continue note. It stayed idle for about 45 minutes until a different message woke it.

B. waiting_input past the unpark delay agentMailUnparkAfterMinutes is 15 at global level (no project override seen in the project we can read). 4. An agent stayed in waiting_input from 06:50 with 5 unread / 5 pending for well over 15 minutes, until the user told it to read its mail. The user saw an empty-looking question card. 5. Another agent stayed in waiting_input from 21:14 to about 06:30 the next morning with 1 unread. On 18 Oct the same setting did unpark mail as expected (the notice "your question is still open" arrived).

Question: can an empty or invisible question card, or a CLI dialog, hold the mail without the user seeing why?

Expected behavior

An idle console takes in delivered agent mail (wakes or shows a notice). A console in waiting_input receives queued mail after agentMailUnparkAfterMinutes (15).

Actual behavior

Mail stays delivered/pending and unread for 45 minutes up to about 9 hours, until a human intervenes in the agent's tab.

Steps to reproduce

Set global agentMailUnparkAfterMinutes = 15. 2. Let agent X go idle (turn ended) or ask its user a question (waiting_input). 3. Send it a message with agents_send from another agent. 4. Watch agents_list_live: unread/pending stays above 0 well beyond 15 minutes and the agent does not act.

Errors and logs

Observed via agents_list_live (unread/pending counts, status, waitingSince) on 19 Oct 18:45-19:50, 19 Oct 22:22-20 Oct 06:16, 20 Oct 00:53-01:40, 19 Oct 21:14-20 Oct 06:30 and 20 Oct from 06:50 (Amsterdam time).

Replies

The team2 days ago

This fix will be available in the next version. Question cards were being treated like terminal dialogs, so your mail delay never applied to them, even when the card was folded or hard to see. The delay now applies after the question tool has finished waiting, while the question stays open. Idle consoles also get one automatic reminder for delivered but unread mail; already-read messages are not repeated. Actual terminal dialogs still require your input. If this still happens after the update, please reopen the ticket with as much detail as possible; a screenshot or video helps a lot.