Completed subagents appear active until their results are opened

Start with the parent task UI and the runtime agent-status query described in the report, reproducing the sequence with completed subagents whose results remain unopened. Done means the interface distinguishes running, completed-unread, and completed-read states without presenting completed agents as active; no files or tests are named in the issue.

What version of the Codex App are you using?

The exact Codex Desktop build was not available to the agent. Observed on 2026-08-09.

What subscription do you have?

Not relevant to the UI behavior.

What platform is your computer?

macOS 26.6.1 (25G76), arm64.

What issue are you seeing?

Completed subagents can remain presented in the parent task UI as if they are still active. In this case, the UI appeared to show three active subagents, while the runtime agent-status query reported that every child agent was completed and only the parent agent was running.

Opening each completed subagent caused its apparent active indicator to disappear. This suggests that the indicator represents an unread completion/result, but visually communicates ongoing execution instead.

This is confusing because users may reasonably conclude that agents are still consuming model time or other resources.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

1. Start one or more subagents from a parent task.
2. Let the subagents finish.
3. Return to the parent task without opening the completed subagent results.
4. Observe that the UI still appears to present some subagents as active.
5. Verify through agent runtime status that those subagents are completed.
6. Open the completed subagents one by one.
7. Observe that their indicators disappear after being viewed.

What is the expected behavior?

The UI should clearly distinguish:

• Running: the subagent is still executing.
• Completed — unread result: execution has ended, but its result has not been opened.
• Completed — read: execution has ended and its result has been viewed.

A label such as “3 unread subagent results” would avoid implying that three agents are still running.

Additional information

No continued execution was actually observed. The issue is the mismatch between the visual state and the runtime state, which made it necessary to inspect the agent status explicitly to determine whether resources were still being consumed.