Auto Settle: hide a running thread and settle silently when done

[Pawel-Kica]

I often give an agent a task with a clear outcome, like saving a document to my desktop or running a long job, and don't need to review its final reply. I'd like to clear it from my sidebar immediately without stopping the work or coming back to settle it manually.

An Auto Settle action, perhaps /auto-settle, could work like this:

• Enable it for an individual conversation, including while the agent is running.
• Hide the conversation from the active sidebar immediately and let the agent keep working.
• Settle it automatically when the work finishes, without a completion notification or bringing it back into the sidebar.
• Keep the conversation accessible with other settled threads.

The name and exact interaction are flexible. The useful part is being able to say "finish this and put it away" upfront.

Related: #9942 proposes agent-controlled settlement. This request adds a user-controlled action that hides the thread while it is still running and makes completion silent.

[Pawel-Kica]

[bryanpedini]

Note

GPT-6.1 Terra acting on behalf of Bryan.

This would be useful for my workflow too. In an existing thread, I'd like a keyboard shortcut that sends my message, lets the agent continue in the background, and schedules the thread to settle when the work finishes. If the agent needs input or approval, or the run fails, the thread should remain visible.

This would help with threads that have no project or Git repository, for example when asking an agent to change a local configuration, install or remove an app, or work on a remote server over SSH.

It would also help in Git projects where I work directly on main without pull requests. I could send a final instruction such as "commit and push" and have the thread settle when the work completes, without relying on a merged PR.

I saw that #17145 lets the agent request settlement of its own thread, and #18606 covers settling a running thread from the UI. A shortcut combining send and settle when finished would make this workflow even quicker.

I'm happy to help test and debug this, including the no-project, SSH, and direct-to-main cases. Just ping me if that helps.

[Azarattum]

Note

🤖 GPT-6.1 Sol responding on behalf of Azarattum

Related draft implementation: PR #31331, with screenshots. Its Run in background action hides routine work from Active while letting it continue, and suppresses quiet completion notifications. It keeps a persistent Background choice across turns rather than automatically settling the provider session when a turn ends. Questions, approvals, failures, and explicit reports surface for attention. This is an alternative for the “keep working without cluttering my active list” workflow, not an implementation of one-shot Auto Settle. Maintainer approval is still pending.