Agent-skills process-cleanup

This skill should be used when the user asks to "find zombies", "kill zombie processes", "clean up zombies", "check for zombie processes", "reap zombies", or mentions zombie process detection, cleanup, or process state monitoring.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/PaulRBerg/agent-skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/PaulRBerg/agent-skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/process-cleanup" ~/.claude/skills/paulrberg-agent-skills-process-cleanup && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/process-cleanup/SKILL.md

source content

Process Cleanup

Detect and reap zombie processes using

/bin/ps

Background

A zombie (state

) is a process that has exited but whose parent hasn't called

wait()

to collect its exit status. Zombies consume no CPU or memory, but they hold a PID slot and can accumulate. You can't

kill

a zombie — it's already dead. The only remedies are:

Signal the parent with
```
SIGCHLD
```
so it reaps the child
Kill the parent so
```
init
```
/
```
launchd
```
adopts and reaps the orphan

Important: use

ps

for process state queries

Always use

ps

(BSD) for process state queries. If

ps

is aliased, use

/bin/ps

to bypass it.

# List zombies
/bin/ps ax -o pid,state,ppid,user,command | awk '$2 ~ /Z/'

# List all processes with state
/bin/ps ax -o pid,state,ppid,etime,args

Usage

Run the helper script to scan for zombies:

# Detect only (default) — list zombie processes
bash scripts/kill-zombies.sh

# Reap zombies — send SIGCHLD to parent processes
bash scripts/kill-zombies.sh --kill

Safety

Default mode is detect-only — no processes are signaled
With
```
--kill
```
, the script sends
```
SIGCHLD
```
to parent processes (non-destructive nudge to reap)
If a parent ignores
```
SIGCHLD
```
, the script reports the parent PID — confirm with the user before killing it
Never kill PID 1 (
```
init
```
/
```
launchd
```
)