Bug: Zombie agent keeps respawning after feature set to done + stopped

[mabry1985]

Summary

When stop_agent is called on a running agent and the feature is set to 'done', the agent respawns within seconds. The done→backlog→in_progress cycle repeats indefinitely. stop_agent returns success:true but the agent restarts. Likely cause: auto-mode loop or a watcher re-queues the feature before the done status is persisted. The stop+done must be atomic, or auto-mode must check status before spawning. Blocking mythxengine Scene Pages project because this zombie agent occupies the concurrency sl...

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Created automatically by Automaker

Summary by CodeRabbit

New Features

• Added support for specifying a final status when stopping an agent or feature (backlog, done, or verified)
• Stopped features with terminal statuses now maintain their assigned status instead of being reset to backlog, preventing unwanted automatic respawn behavior

[coderabbitai]

Caution

Review failed

Pull request was closed or merged during review

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The changes add support for an optional targetStatus parameter when stopping feature agents, allowing users to specify the final status (backlog, done, or verified) instead of always defaulting to backlog. The service logic is updated to preserve terminal statuses when provided, preventing automatic feature respawning.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
API Route & Tool Input Definitions apps/server/src/routes/auto-mode/routes/stop-feature.ts, apps/server/src/routes/chat/ava-tools.ts, packages/mcp-server/src/tools/agent-tools.ts	Added optional targetStatus parameter to route handler request body validation and tool input schemas (enum: backlog, done, verified), maintaining backward compatibility.
Service Implementation apps/server/src/services/auto-mode-service.ts	Updated stopFeature method signature to accept optional targetStatus parameter. Changed status update logic to preserve terminal states (done, verified, completed) when targetStatus is provided; otherwise defaults to backlog.
MCP Server Handler packages/mcp-server/src/index.ts	Updated stop_agent tool request handler to conditionally include targetStatus in payload only when defined.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Poem

🐰 A status we preserve with care,
No more the backlog snare!
When agents stop, they choose their fate,
Done or verified—we won't reset the state! ✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 2 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 66.67% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (2 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately and specifically summarizes the main bug fix: preventing zombie agents from respawning when a feature is set to done and stopped.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch feature/bug-zombie-agent-keeps-respawning-after

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