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docs(evals): note CLAUDE_CODE_PRINT_BG_WAIT_CEILING_MS for headless eval runs that use workflows

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
75/100
Issue type
Documentation
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
shell
Domain
documentation

Research direction

Start with the headless-run guidance in the evals plugin (plugins/evals, methodology) and the invocation-probe reference at plugins/skill-quality/reference/invocation-probes.md, which both show claude -p usage; plugins/skill-quality/scripts/measure-invocation.sh is the script that runs it. Confirm grep -r BG_WAIT still finds nothing. Done means each of those spots points to the upstream env-vars page with an as-of date and recheck trigger, says that long Workflows under claude -p need the ceiling raised or set to 0, and does not restate the default.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

good first issue needs-human needs-triage priority: low

What was observed

Running a skill-creator old-versus-new comparison headlessly with claude -p killed a Workflow mid-run: claude -p stops waiting for background tasks about 10 minutes after the last turn. Setting CLAUDE_CODE_PRINT_BG_WAIT_CEILING_MS=0 avoided it. A search of the repo for BG_WAIT finds no mention, including in plugins/evals (plugin-eval, methodology) and plugins/skill-quality (which do mention claude -p).

The variable is documented upstream: the Claude Code environment variables page lists CLAUDE_CODE_PRINT_BG_WAIT_CEILING_MS as the ceiling on idle waiting for background work (subagents, workflows) after the final turn in non-interactive -p mode; 0 waits indefinitely; it requires a recent Claude Code version (v2.1.182 or later per the page). Source: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/env-vars, which links the headless page's "background tasks at exit" section.

Evidence

  • grep -r "BG_WAIT" over the repo: no matches.
  • plugins/skill-quality/scripts/measure-invocation.sh and plugins/skill-quality/reference/invocation-probes.md run claude -p without the variable.

Suggested fix

Add a short pointer to the upstream page (with an as-of date and recheck trigger, restating no default) in the headless-run guidance of the evals plugin and the skill-quality invocation-probe reference: long Workflows under claude -p need the ceiling raised or set to 0.

Why it was not fixed in the originating PR

The knowledge came from an eval run, not a change to these files; adding it is a separate docs change.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Forks
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Avg merge
6h 42m
Merged PRs (30d)
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