agent-signals

Checks for each OS

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How a tool or a probe sees an agent process, its terminal, its open files and its folder, on each OS. The column "Measured" says where the row was measured. "Probe" means that a probe uses it and CI runs that probe on a runner with no agent session.

Linux

Question Command Measured
Processes and parents ps -axo pid=,ppid=,tty=,args=; /proc/<pid>/stat field 4 real machine (Debian 13), probe
Children pgrep -P <pid> real machine
Working folder readlink /proc/<pid>/cwd real machine
Open files readlink /proc/<pid>/fd/* (no lsof needed) real machine (facts 25, 26, 28)
Terminal ps -o tty=; readlink /proc/<pid>/fd/0 real machine
Environment (own processes) /proc/<pid>/environ, NUL-separated. Print only names from a fixed list: the environment can hold secrets. real machine
ubuntu-slim runner No lsof and no tmux. The probes read /proc. CI runner (fact 49)
tmux pane of a process tmux list-panes -a -F '#{pane_pid} #{pane_id}'; TMUX_PANE in the environment; the tmux field of the Claude pid file (fact 23) real machine

macOS

Question Command Measured
Processes and parents ps -axo pid=,ppid=,tty=,args= real machine (fact 22), probe
Children pgrep -P <pid> probe
Working folder lsof -n -P -a -p <pid> -d cwd -Fn real machine (aw doctor)
Open files lsof -n -P -p <pid> -Fn. 24 agent processes took 0.7 s. real machine (facts 21, 22; aw doctor)
Terminal ps -o tty= real machine
Environment (own processes) ps eww -o command= -p <pid> probe (no session)
Terminal tab of a tty Terminal: tell application "Terminal" to get tty of every tab of every window; iTerm2: tty of every session of every tab of every window. The first call can open an Automation dialog. real machine, Terminal only (fact 22)
Bring a tab to the front Terminal: set selected of <tab> to true; iTerm2: select <tab>. The kit step --guided front-tab tests it. not measured
JetBrains IDE terminal tabs No known scripting access. probes/terminals/macos.sh checks for an AppleScript dictionary. not measured
Ghostty, WezTerm, kitty, Warp wezterm cli list; kitty remote control (kitten @). not measured
tmux Not on the macOS runner images. The scenarios install it with brew install tmux. CI runners (fact 49)
lsof and /proc compared lsof -p lists mapped files (.node, .dylib) and more; Linux /proc/<pid>/fd lists only open descriptors. CI runners (fact 50)

Windows

Question Command Measured
Processes and parents Get-CimInstance Win32_Process (ProcessId, ParentProcessId, CommandLine) probe (no session)
Working folder No route without reading the memory of the process. A Claude session shows its folder in its session file. aw (no route)
Open files psutil Process.open_files() lists the log files that an agent holds open (Cursor CLI). Sysinternals handle.exe -p <pid> is not part of Windows. CI runners (fact 54)
Terminal driver A pseudo console (ConPTY) through pywinpty 3.1.2, read with pyte 0.8.2 (scenarios/conpty.py). The console host is the OpenConsole.exe of the wheel, a child of the driver, not of the agent. CI runners (fact 51)
Home folder of an agent Most agents read USERPROFILE. Codex CLI ignores USERPROFILE and HOME and writes to the profile of the account, but it uses CODEX_HOME when it is set. Open Interpreter, Every Code, Junie CLI and Kiro CLI also write to the profile of the account. Cursor CLI takes the account name from Windows, not from USERNAME. CI runners (facts 53, 54, 62, 64)
Terminal A console process has no tty. The parent chain shows the terminal program: WindowsTerminal, OpenConsole, conhost, Code, a JetBrains IDE. probe (no session)
Environment of another process No route without extra tools. not measured
psmux (tmux for Windows) psmux ls, psmux list-panes -a. Under PowerShell, send-keys ... C-m sends a literal ^M; Enter works. aw (psmux 3.4.0)
Codex CLI keys Tab sends a message. Enter and C-j add a new line. aw (Codex 0.164.0)
Install folder and version Get-Command <cmd> -All lists an npm agent as <cmd>.ps1, <cmd>.cmd and <cmd>. The version is in node_modules\<package>\package.json below the npm prefix (C:\npm\prefix on the runners). The file version of an .exe is not always the agent version. CI runners (facts 47, 48)

State folders of each agent

The same on Linux and macOS, below the home folder. Windows uses %USERPROFILE% for the same names (not measured).

Agent Session link Live signal Transcript
Claude Code ~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json (sessionId, tmux) status in the same file: idle, busy, waiting (with waitingFor), shell for a background shell (facts 23, 31) ~/.claude/projects/<key>/<session id>.jsonl
Codex CLI ~/.codex/thread-writer-locks/<session id>.lock, open in the daemon (fact 26) task_complete, turn_aborted records (fact 27); the Interrupt and Stop hooks (fact 38) ~/.codex/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-<time>-<session id>.jsonl
agy ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/presence/<conversation id>.lock, a flock lock held by the process (facts 28, 44) hooks PreInvocation, Stop (fact 28); status in conversation_summaries.db (fact 45) ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/brain/<conversation id>/.system_generated/logs/transcript.jsonl
Cursor CLI ~/.cursor/chats/<hex>/<chat id>/store.db, open in the process (fact 21) not known ~/.cursor/projects/<key>/agent-transcripts/<chat id>/<chat id>.jsonl
opencode not known not known not known
Copilot CLI ~/.copilot/session-state/<session id>/inuse.<pid>.hold, open in the process (fact 30) not known not known