Summary
Long-running task management for agents that lack it natively, backed by a single source of truth.
The core service owns every process's state, so an agent can start a build or a server, poll its output with head or tail, and stop it when done, while the separate TUI lets a person watch the same processes without interfering.
What it is
A server that provides background process management as a standard tool, so agents that cannot manage long-running processes natively can start commands, watch their output, and stop them — with a companion TUI for watching the same processes yourself.
What you get
- start_process runs a shell command in the background and returns a process id; stop_process and clear_process end and remove a process
- get_process_output returns recent output, taking either the first or the last N lines
- list_processes returns the state of every managed process; get_server_status reports the core service's version, port, uptime, and process counts
Requirements
Runs through npx; Node is the prerequisite. No account or key. A standalone core service holds the process state, and both the agent and the optional TUI connect to it.
Setup effort
One command — npx @waylaidwanderer/background-process-mcp@latest