nohup keeps the job alive. LMAS keeps the agent loop sane.
A background process is only half the problem. Long-running AI-agent work also needs a clear stopping point now and a reliable wake-up later.
Plain nohup
- Starts the process.
- Leaves the agent to decide whether to poll.
- Does not standardize stdout, stderr, metadata, or artifacts.
- Does not inject a completion event into the session.
LMAS
- Starts the process in tmux.
- Returns
LMAS_HANDOFF v1so the agent stops. - Records run metadata in plain files.
- Injects
LMAS_COMPLETION_EVENT v1when the job ends.
The principle
Long-running jobs are handoff tasks, not completion tasks. The agent's current turn should safely start the job and hand it off. The completion turn should inspect logs, summarize results, and choose the next action.