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Background completion backlogs

Interactive surfaces coalesce consecutive background-process completions that are already ready for one conversation into a single notification turn. This does not add a delay or promise to combine jobs that finish at different times. Failures and successful outputs remain in the batch; one completion keeps its original text.

Process identity remains available until dispatch. Explicit process_manage wait/log/kill consumption can therefore suppress a CLI completion even after it has left the process registry and entered the input queue. An entirely consumed batch starts no turn. Watching output and async-delegation results remain separate notifications, in their original order; they are not folded into completion batches.

Consumers and ownership​

  • Classic CLI: hermes_cli/cli_process_notifications.py owns the idle/post-turn drain, compression-aware ownership and final input unwrapping.
  • TUI and Desktop: tui_gateway/session_notifications.py groups the poller's ready snapshot after checking ownership. Each process still emits its own UI status. Busy sessions requeue structured events, not rendered batch strings.
  • Post-turn TUI safety net: tui_gateway/prompt_turn.py uses the same routing and rendering path. Desktop and dashboard chat clients share this backend.
  • Messaging gateway: gateway/run_notifications.py already uses its own route-keyed short-window batching. This interactive-backlog change does not replace that mechanism or alter adapter sends.
  • Noninteractive/headless consumers: this change does not create a new autonomous notification loop for an API request, ACP client, or one-shot CLI.

The shared renderer is tools/process_registry_notifications.py::ProcessNotificationBatch. Neither a batch nor its delivery status is persisted into the system prompt. Addressed events still require a provable owner; another live session cannot adopt them. Delegation delivery continues through its existing durable claim/complete ledger, once per delegation rather than once per process batch.

Local validation and its limits​

evals/completion_backlog_probe.py REPO OUTPUT.json starts real local shell children in temporary directories, reads their real completion events, and drives the production CLI, TUI poller and post-turn notification routes. A loopback HTTP turn sink replaces chat / _run_prompt_submit; it records actual dispatches but does not exercise model inference, native renderer interaction or a hosted platform. Synthetic watch and delegation envelopes are labeled fixtures; delegation claims use the real temporary SQLite ledger. The backlog case includes a nonzero exit.

The probe checks a ready backlog, a single exact payload, explicitly consumed results, foreign ownership, and watches/delegations interleaved with completions. It measures turn admission at the notification boundary, not model token savings.