Re:Coding Agents stop mid-task
by naw103 on Tuesday November 03, 2026 @08:55PM
(#50360672)
We released v0.6.0 of Foremerge
Foremerge records what each coding agent intends to change prior to actually making any code change. It returns a signal to your agent automatically when two plans cannot both be true at the same time. In version 0.6.0 we changed how the coordinator handles it when an agent disappears part way through a task without completing and saying "goodbye".
Previously: we accounted for this by auto expiring agent claims after no activity but the intents stayed open without being closed.
This meant that every later intent was still compared to the previous still open intents even though the claims were expired. In a busy file in a busy repository this could leave to thousands of open but expired intents burying the useful ones.
What 0.6.0 changes:
- Any finding below HIGH against work where the agent has stopped (silent for 2 hours) is no longer recorded (HIGH findings are still recorded so the acceptance gate remains unchanged)
- stopped work is still listed but at the end and marked with owner_stopped_since
- if an agents that stopped work comes back after the 2 hours window, or another agent has adopted its work, then possible findings skipped are resurfaced and then logged as findings.
- the agent skill now says to close an intent before stopping and work that reached git without acceptance can be closed with `foremerge work discard --landed REF`
The lesson to take from this for anyone building with multiple agents is to always design for the agent that dosn't come back.
Version 0.6.0 also changes ledger migration so that it no longer migrates automatically.
run `foremerge ledger migrate` which backs up your current ledger and prints out how to roll back
Foremerge records what each coding agent intends to change prior to actually making any code change. It returns a signal to your agent automatically when two plans cannot both be true at the same time. In version 0.6.0 we changed how the coordinator handles it when an agent disappears part way through a task without completing and saying "goodbye".
Previously: we accounted for this by auto expiring agent claims after no activity but the intents stayed open without being closed.
This meant that every later intent was still compared to the previous still open intents even though the claims were expired. In a busy file in a busy repository this could leave to thousands of open but expired intents burying the useful ones.
What 0.6.0 changes:
- Any finding below HIGH against work where the agent has stopped (silent for 2 hours) is no longer recorded (HIGH findings are still recorded so the acceptance gate remains unchanged)
- stopped work is still listed but at the end and marked with owner_stopped_since
- if an agents that stopped work comes back after the 2 hours window, or another agent has adopted its work, then possible findings skipped are resurfaced and then logged as findings.
- the agent skill now says to close an intent before stopping and work that reached git without acceptance can be closed with `foremerge work discard --landed REF`
The lesson to take from this for anyone building with multiple agents is to always design for the agent that dosn't come back.
Version 0.6.0 also changes ledger migration so that it no longer migrates automatically. run `foremerge ledger migrate` which backs up your current ledger and prints out how to roll back
Release notes: https://github.com/naw103/foremerge/releases/tag/v0.6.0