github / github/copilot-cli

Runaway FileWatch host-event loop freezes TUI and grows debug log to 13 GB

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Beschreibung

Describe the bug

A long-running/resumed Copilot CLI session can enter a tight loop that emits:

[DEBUG] [rust:copilot_runtime::protocol::jsonrpc::engine] No connection accepted a host event {"kind":"FileWatch"}

Once the loop becomes continuous, the terminal UI stops responding while the
process consumes about two CPU cores and writes hundreds of KB/s to its debug
log.

In the affected process:

  • The final 10,000 log records were all the identical discarded FileWatch
    event.
  • Current CPU measured over five seconds was approximately 200%.
  • RSS was approximately 1.1 GB.
  • The process log had reached 13 GB and was growing at approximately 460 KB/s.
  • The process remained alive; this was not an OS OOM kill or terminal flow
    control pause.
  • The host had ample free memory, disk space, and inodes.
  • USE_TGREP=false was already effective. Startup telemetry contained
    disabled_reason: "use_tgrep_false", and no tgrep child was running.

This appears related to IDE integration, but I cannot yet prove that opening
VS Code is the sole trigger. The affected session logged IDE lock-file watcher
startup and was running in a workspace open in VS Code. Disabling IDE
auto-connect prevented IDE discovery and the continuing event storm in a
controlled fresh-session test.

This differs from #3701: there was no repeated MCP server spawning or leaked
MCP process tree. The runaway activity was inside the Copilot process's
FileWatch/JSON-RPC event path.

Affected version
GitHub Copilot CLI 1.0.81-9

The no-IDE control test was also run after auto-update installed 1.0.81-11.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

The exact transition into the continuous loop is not yet deterministic, but
this is the observed setup:

  1. Open a large multi-repository workspace in VS Code.
  2. Start Copilot CLI from that workspace root with debug logging enabled.
  3. Resume and continue using a long-lived session.
  4. Leave IDE auto-connect enabled (the default).
  5. The session eventually becomes unresponsive while its log continuously
    prints the discarded FileWatch event shown above.

Useful checks while the failure is active:

ps -p <pid> -o pid,pcpu,pmem,rss,nlwp,stat,wchan,cmd
tail -n 10000 ~/.copilot/logs/process-*.log |
  sed -E 's/^[0-9TZ:.-]+ \[[A-Z]+\] \[[^]]+\] //' |
  sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head

The affected process showed:

10000 No connection accepted a host event {"kind":"FileWatch"}
Controlled comparison

I configured:

{
  "ide": {
    "autoConnect": false
  }
}

Then started a fresh CLI session from the same workspace while VS Code remained
open. In that session:

  • There were no IDE lock watcher, IDE discovery, or ide_connected records.
  • The process had no inotify watch on ~/.copilot/ide.
  • Only five FileWatch records appeared during startup.
  • Log growth then stopped, current CPU dropped to approximately 1%, and the TUI
    remained responsive.

For comparison, using the invalid dotted JSON key
"ide.autoConnect": false produced a settings warning, started the IDE lock
watcher, detected VS Code, and connected to the IDE. The nested object shown
above is required.

Expected behavior
  • FileWatch events should be consumed, coalesced, debounced, or dropped without
    entering an unbounded CPU/logging loop.
  • A disconnected/uninterested host-event consumer should not cause every
    filesystem event to be logged indefinitely.
  • IDE lock-file activity should not starve terminal input or rendering.
  • Debug logging should be rate-limited for repeated identical events.
Additional context
  • OS: WSL2 Linux 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2
  • Architecture: ARM64
  • Terminal: VS Code integrated terminal
  • Workspace root contained multiple repositories.
  • Session indexing reported SESSION_INDEXING=true.
  • tgrep was disabled with USE_TGREP=false.
  • The affected process had two inotify descriptors resolving to the resumed
    session's own ~/.copilot/session-state/<session>/ and research/
    directories. The first FileWatch records also appeared before the log line
    that started the IDE lock-file watcher, so IDE auto-connect may be an
    amplifier or trigger rather than the underlying event source.
  • Another session from the same environment previously accumulated a 2 GB log
    and approximately 4 GB RSS with large bursts of the same FileWatch message,
    but later became idle instead of remaining in the tight loop.

Workaround:

{
  "ide": {
    "autoConnect": false
  }
}

Restart Copilot CLI after applying the setting. Manual /ide connection
remains available.

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Rechercherichtung

Beginne damit, den FileWatch-Host-Event-Pfad durch die JSON-RPC-Verarbeitung der Runtime und den IDE-Auto-Connect-Ablauf zu verfolgen; das Issue nennt keine bestimmten Quelldateien oder Tests. Reproduziere das Problem mit Debug-Logging unter Verwendung des bereitgestellten Workspace und der autoConnect-Einstellungen und überprüfe anschließend, dass wiederholt verworfene Events die TUI nicht mehr einfrieren und kein unbeschränktes Wachstum von CPU-Auslastung und Logs mehr verursachen.

Vom Indexierungsmodell aus dem Issue-Text verfasst.

Bewertung

Tech-Stack
linux, shell, vscode
Bereich
cli, performance
Issue-Typ
Bug
Schwierigkeit
5/5
Geschätzter Aufwand
Über eine Woche
Aktivitätsstatus
Aktiv
Klarheit
Muss geklärt werden
Anfängerfreundlichkeit
32/100

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