Background Agents Versus Delegated Tasks

Rocky can scale work by splitting tasks, but the orchestration mode matters. A fast QA worker, a build process, and a separate autonomous agent have different verification needs.

Choose the smallest reliable mode

• Use a delegated task for bounded research, code review, or QA that can return a concise summary.
• Use a tracked background terminal process for long tests, builds, servers, or watchers.
• Use a spawned Hermes process when the work needs a fully independent agent session, tool environment, or long autonomous mission.

Operational checklist

• Pass all needed context to a subagent; it does not know the current chat unless you include it.
• For bounded background commands, request completion notification so results are not forgotten.
• For servers, verify readiness with a health check before running browser tests.
• Do not recursively create cron jobs from a cron expansion job.

Pitfalls

• Delegated summaries are self-reports; verify file writes, URLs, and deploys yourself.
• Background jobs without notifications can finish silently.
• Multiple agents editing the same files need a coordination plan or separate worktrees.

Verification steps

• Read the returned artifact path, URL, or status code.
• Inspect changed files or live routes yourself before reporting success.
• Stop or clean up long-lived processes that were only needed for QA.