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Opencode processes survive terminal disconnect, become orphans, and leak memory #12913
Description
Summary
When a terminal session is closed or an SSH connection drops without explicitly exiting opencode (Ctrl+C / exit), the opencode process is not terminated. It becomes an orphan (reparented to PID 1), continues to hold memory indefinitely, and leaks memory over time. On long-running dev machines, this leads to severe memory exhaustion.
Environment
- opencode version: 1.1.53
- Binary: Bun 1.2 compiled, ELF aarch64
- OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (ARM64, Orange Pi)
- RAM: 32 GB
Reproduction
- Open a terminal (SSH or local)
- Run
opencode - Use it for a while (interact with an agent, run tools, etc.)
- Close the terminal window or disconnect SSH without exiting opencode
- Observe: the opencode process continues running, detached from any TTY
Repeat a few times and watch memory disappear.
Observed Behavior
After a day and a half of normal usage (opening/closing sessions), 6 orphaned opencode processes accumulated:
| PID | Age | RSS | TTY | PPID | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 140728 | 1d 17h | 504 MB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
| 700891 | 1d 12h | 11.2 GB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
| 254506 | 1d 16h | 499 MB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
| 715951 | 1d 12h | 2.5 GB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
| 1388538 | 21h | 4.1 GB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
| 1703444 | 3 min | 467 MB | ? (none) | 1 (init) | Sleeping |
Total orphaned memory: ~19 GB out of 32 GB, making the machine nearly unusable.
Only 2 processes were actually attached to terminals and doing work.
Signal Analysis
SigIgn: 0000000001000000 (only signal 25 ignored)
SigCgt: 0000000128005cef (SIGHUP is CAUGHT, not ignored)
SIGHUP (signal 1) is registered as caught, which means the process receives it on terminal disconnect — but it does not exit. The handler appears to swallow the signal without performing a clean shutdown.
Memory Leak
The oldest process (36h) grew to 11.2 GB RSS with 210 open file descriptors, while younger processes of similar age sat at ~500 MB. This suggests a memory leak in long-running sessions, likely from accumulated conversation context, MCP tool results, or unreleased buffers.
Expected Behavior
- On
SIGHUP(terminal disconnect): opencode should clean up and exit within a reasonable timeout (e.g., 5-10 seconds) - If graceful shutdown hangs (waiting on MCP servers, API calls, etc.): force exit after timeout
- Long-running sessions should not grow unboundedly in memory — there should be some form of context/buffer pruning or ceiling
Workaround
Manually kill orphaned processes:
# Find orphaned opencode processes (PPID=1, no TTY)
ps -eo pid,ppid,tty,rss,comm | grep opencode | awk '$2 == 1 && $3 == "?" {print $1}' | xargs killImpact
On resource-constrained machines (ARM SBCs, small VMs) this is particularly painful — a few forgotten sessions can OOM the machine within a day.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Feb 10, 2026
This issue appears to be a duplicate of existing reports about orphaned processes when terminals close. Please check these related issues:
All three issues describe the same root cause: missing SIGHUP signal handling leading to orphaned processes. #12767 already has an assignee. Please consolidate efforts on one of these existing issues to avoid duplicate work.
OmerFarukOruc commentedon Feb 27, 2026
If you're hitting this on Linux — I wrote a cleanup script that finds and kills orphaned opencode processes (no TTY). Quick workaround until it's fixed.
Usage:
oc-cleanup(list),oc-cleanup kill(kill orphans),oc-cleanup watch(monitor all)Full gist + README: https://gist.github.com/OmerFarukOruc/d1bf2bb1f6f4f01c3a0e63288ada7c94
See also: #15348
thdxr commentedon Apr 2, 2026
Closing in favor of #20695 where we're collecting all memory-related problems. Please follow that issue for updates.