Emergency Stop
The Emergency Stop (E-STOP) immediately halts all running agents. It is designed for situations where you need to stop everything right away.
Triggering E-STOP
Two ways to trigger:
- Press Ctrl+Shift+E (Cmd+Shift+E on macOS)
- Click the E-STOP button in the status bar
E-STOP executes immediately with no confirmation dialog. When you press the shortcut or click the button, agents stop.
E-STOP is immediate. There is no "are you sure?" prompt. Use it when you need agents to stop now.
What happens
The shutdown sequence runs in a specific order to ensure the UI updates instantly:
- Status update (synchronous): all agent statuses are set to "stopped". The UI reflects this immediately.
- PTY kill: all terminal sessions associated with agents are terminated.
- Backend cleanup: each agent's SDK backend is cleaned up with a 3-second timeout. If cleanup takes longer, it is abandoned.
What is preserved
- Terminal scrollback remains intact; you can still scroll through previous output
- No files are deleted or modified
- Agent configurations and conversation history are untouched
E-STOP vs. quit confirmation
E-STOP and the quit dialog are different:
- E-STOP (Ctrl+Shift+E): stops agents immediately, app stays open
- Quit (Ctrl+Q / close window with agents running): shows a confirmation modal asking what to do with running agents