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Managing Memory Leaks When Running Multiple Claude Code Agents

Fazm Team··2 min read
claude-codeparallel-agentsmemory-managementdevopsnode-processes

Managing Memory Leaks When Running Multiple Claude Code Agents

Running one Claude Code agent is fine. Running five in parallel on the same repo turns memory leaks from a minor annoyance into a machine-killing problem. Orphaned node processes pile up, and within a few hours your Mac is swapping to disk.

The Problem Multiplies

Each Claude Code session spawns multiple node processes - MCP servers, language servers, file watchers. When a session ends or crashes, some of these processes do not get cleaned up. With one agent, you might lose a few hundred megabytes. With five agents running continuously, you can lose gigabytes per day.

The symptoms are predictable: fans spin up, builds get slower, and eventually something gets OOM-killed.

The Cleanup Script

The fix is straightforward - a script that runs on a schedule and kills orphaned processes:

  1. Identify orphans - find node processes whose parent PID is 1 (adopted by init) or whose parent Claude Code process no longer exists
  2. Filter carefully - not every node process is an orphan. Check if the process is still attached to a running Claude session
  3. Kill and log - terminate the orphans and log what you killed so you can debug if something goes wrong

A cron job or launchd plist running this every 2-3 hours keeps things stable.

Prevention Helps Too

Beyond cleanup, a few habits reduce the problem:

  • Close sessions cleanly rather than just closing the terminal
  • Use separate terminal tabs (not background processes) so you can see what is running
  • Monitor with Activity Monitor or htop sorted by memory to catch problems early
  • Set memory limits on MCP servers where possible

The underlying issue is that long-running agent sessions were not designed for continuous operation. Until that changes, a cleanup script is essential infrastructure for anyone running parallel agents.

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Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.

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