{"slug": "reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind", "title": "Reap the processes your coding agents leave behind", "summary": "Appulse Software released Reaper, a native macOS menu bar app that detects dev servers, watchers and daemons started by coding agents and kills them in one click. Reaper supports Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode and T3 Code, reads the process table via libproc with a 3-second poll, and flags \"ghosts\" — processes whose agent session already ended — using environment markers such as CLAUDECODE, CODEX_SHELL and CURSOR_AGENT. The app requires macOS 14 or later and is licensed under Apache License 2.0.", "body_md": "**Reap the processes your coding agents leave behind.**\n\nReaper is a native macOS menu bar app that finds the dev servers, watchers and daemons started by coding agents and lets you kill them in one click.\n\nAgents spin up `npm run dev`, test servers and background daemons, then move on. Reaper shows every process an agent started: the command, the ports it holds and which agent started it. That includes **ghosts**, processes whose agent session has already ended.\n\n- Claude Code (CLI and desktop)\n- Cursor (editor and `cursor-agent` )\n- Codex (CLI and desktop app)\n- OpenCode\n- T3 Code\n\n- **Grouped by agent:** each section shows the agent's own app icon.\n- **Ghosts first:** within each agent, ghosts (👻) come first, then the longest-running processes.\n- **Filters:** switch between*All* and*👻 Ghosts* , and optionally show only processes listening on a port.\n- **Ports:** click a port to open`http://localhost:<port>` . A 🌐 marks ports open on all network interfaces, not just localhost.\n- **Kill:** × stops the whole process tree with SIGTERM, and offers*Force* (SIGKILL) if it survives. ⌥-click × to force-kill straight away. Expand a row to kill individual subprocesses.\n- **Context menu:** copy the command or PID, or reveal the working directory in Finder.\n- **Launch at login.**\n\nReaper reads the process table with `libproc`, polls every 3 seconds, and doesn't shell out to `ps` or `lsof`.\n\n- **Ancestry:** a process belongs to an agent when one of its parent processes is that agent.\n- **Environment markers:** when the parent chain is broken because the process was reparented to`launchd` , Reaper falls back to markers that agents leave in the environment, such as`CLAUDECODE` ,`CODEX_SHELL` ,`CURSOR_AGENT` or the host app's bundle ID. Such a process is a ghost.\n- **Noise filtering:** the agents' own helper processes, editor extensions (language servers, test workers) and updaters are hidden.\n\n**Privacy:** Reaper only reads a fixed list of marker environment variables and never stores or shows any other environment values. It makes no network requests.\n\nDownload the latest build from the [releases](https://github.com/AppulseSoftware/reaper/releases), unzip it and move `Reaper.app` to `/Applications`.\n\nRequires macOS 14 or later.\n\nRequires Xcode 16 or later (Swift 6).\n\n```\n./bundle.sh              # ad-hoc signed build at build/Reaper.app\n./bundle.sh --install    # build, copy to /Applications and launch\n./bundle.sh --release    # universal, Developer ID signed and zipped for distribution\n```\n\n`--release` signs with the first `Developer ID Application` identity in your keychain; set `SIGN_IDENTITY` to choose another. To notarize as well, store credentials once and pass the profile name:\n\n```\nxcrun notarytool store-credentials reaper-notary --apple-id <apple-id> --team-id <team-id>\nNOTARY_PROFILE=reaper-notary ./bundle.sh --release\n```\n\nTo see what Reaper detects without the UI:\n\n```\nbuild/Reaper.app/Contents/MacOS/Reaper --dump\n```\n\nCopyright 2026 Appulse Software B.V. Licensed under the [Apache License, Version 2.0](https://github.com/AppulseSoftware/reaper/blob/main/LICENSE).\n\nMade by [Appulse Software](https://appulse.software)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/AppulseSoftware/reaper", "published_at": "2026-10-16 10:38:28+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-16 11:10:47.651858+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "developer-tools", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Appulse Software", "Reaper", "Claude Code", "Cursor", "Codex", "OpenCode", "T3 Code", "macOS"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/reap-the-processes-your-coding-agents-leave-behind.jsonld"}}