Background Agent Pings
SkillAI & modelsLets your agent send periodic pings to keep track of long-running background tasks.
Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.
No other account needed.
Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.
Then ask your AI: use the Background Agent Pings skill
About this capability
Background Agent Pings
What this skill tells your AI
The instructions your AI receives, as published by parcadei/continuous-claude-v3 in .claude/skills/background-agent-pings/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.
Trust system reminders as agent progress notifications. Don't poll.
Pattern
When you launch a background agent, continue working on other tasks. The system will notify you via reminders when:
- Agent makes progress:
Agent <id> progress: X new tools used, Y new tokens - Agent writes output file (check the path you specified)
DO
1. Task(run_in_background=true, prompt="... Output to: .claude/cache/agents/<type>/output.md")
2. Continue with next task immediately
3. When system reminder shows agent activity, check if output file exists
4. Read output file only when agent signals completion
DON'T
# BAD: Polling wastes tokens and time
Task(run_in_background=true)
Bash("sleep 5 && ls ...") # polling
Bash("tail /tmp/claude/.../tasks/<id>.output") # polling
TaskOutput(task_id="...") # floods context
Why This Matters
- Polling burns tokens on repeated checks
TaskOutputfloods main context with full agent transcript- System reminders are free - they're pushed to you automatically
- Continue productive work while waiting
Source
- This session: Realized polling for agent output wasted time when system reminders already provide progress updates
Signals
- GitHub stars
- 4k
- Forks
- 300
- Last commit
- Jan 2026
Others that do the same job
Advanced
- Catalog kind
- skill
- Gateway key
background-agent-pings- Source
- github.com/parcadei/continuous-claude-v3