{"slug": "show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents", "title": "Show HN: Tracon (air traffic control for subagents)", "summary": "A developer released Tracon, an open-source MIT-licensed tool that monitors Claude Code subagents by tailing transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/ and checking each git worktree with ps, lsof, and git, flagging blocked prompts, idle agents, failing-command loops, simultaneous file edits, and brief drift. Tracon runs read-only on the user's machine, with only the text a Haiku judge reads for classification leaving the machine unless the user passes --no-judge, and it is installable via `uvx tracon --demo` on macOS and Linux with Python 3.12+. The developer said the tool addresses drift and inactive subagents observed particularly with Opus 5.5, and noted it is not affiliated with Anthropic.", "body_md": "My Claude Code workflow usually involves... a lot of subagents. I make one Opus model coordinate work as my tech lead, it dispatches subagents using models appropriate for the task into their own git worktrees, and then I try to multitask and do something else while they run.\n\nI'd been finding lately (particularly with Opus 5.5) that there was a ton of drift and instances of subagents not doing anything and it was evading the attention of the TL despite the instructions I gave it to have them report in at a regular cadence.\n\nRunning tracon in a split terminal is my new personal workflow. It gives me early indicators when things start going off the rails (ex. blocked on a prompt, idle, looping on a failing command, simultaneous edits to files other subagents are editing, drifting off the brief, etc.) and I can interrogate the subagent's workflow and by pressing n the main agent gets a note to make a call on how and if to correct it.\n\nRead-only and runs on your machine: it tails transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/ and checks each worktree with ps, lsof, and git -- only thing that leaves your machine is what the Haiku judge reads for classification (or optionally you can turn that off with --no-judge).\n\nI've found it super useful for the game I'm building and figured others in the community might also find it useful.\n\nIf you just want to give it a spin without committing:\n\n```\n  uvx tracon --demo\n```\n\nmacOS and Linux, Python 3.12+, MIT. (Not affiliated with Anthropic.)\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046981](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046981)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/phalladar/tracon", "published_at": "2026-10-11 19:35:33+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-11 20:02:46.544114+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "developer-tools", "large-language-models"], "entities": ["Tracon", "Claude Code", "Anthropic", "Opus 5.5", "Haiku"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-tracon-air-traffic-control-for-subagents.jsonld"}}