What it is
Every Claude run Sightdeck AI starts normally opens a Terminal window: you see the session live, read the output and can type into it. Background mode runs the same session headless instead — no window, no output on screen, progress visible only in Sightdeck AI itself.
It is a single global setting, not per project, and it applies to runs started from that point on. Background execution is macOS-only.
What you get
- A queue that works itself off without taking over your screen — the point of Up Next and of larger bulk runs.
- Status where you are already looking: the task card, the detail panel and the Running Tasks tile show a Background pill while a headless run is live.
- A way out: Stop background run on the lane tile or in the detail panel ends the run — there is no window to close instead.
- Failures still find you. Nothing is on screen, so a run that fails writes the reason into the task's timeline and raises it in the app.
How you use it
- Open Settings → General and find CLI Execution.
- Switch Run in Background on and click Save. The choice survives a restart.
- Start work as usual. Runs that qualify go headless; the ones listed below keep opening a window.
- Switch the toggle back off to return to visible Terminal windows. Sessions already running keep the mode they started with.
What still opens a window
A run that wants to ask you something must not disappear into a headless process, so four actions always open a window regardless of the setting:
- Plan — a planning dialog is a back-and-forth by definition.
- Rework — it starts by asking what you want changed.
- Give feedback — the whole point is that you type an answer.
- Resume — a resumed session usually has a question waiting.
Launch Actions stay windowed too, because their prompt is free text and may ask something. Everything else — Start, bulk parallel and serial runs, an Epic chain, the Up-Next scheduler and the tasks it restarts — is eligible for background mode.
Trade-offs to expect
- The session output is gone. It is discarded as it arrives; only a short tail is kept if the run fails. If you want to read along, use window mode.
- Quitting Sightdeck AI ends background runs. A Terminal window is its own process and survives the app closing; a headless run is not and does not. You get a native notification naming what was stopped, and the task stays where it was so you can start it again.
- A background task that asks a question still lands in Needs You. Clicking Give feedback opens a fresh, visible Terminal that continues the same session — and it stays visible for the rest of that conversation.
