tt interrupt

Pause a running agent.

Synopsis

tt interrupt <AGENT>

Description

Pauses an agent immediately. The agent transitions to Paused state and stops processing messages until resumed with tt resume.

Unlike tt kill, the agent process stays alive — it enters a sleep loop, checking every 5 seconds for a resume signal. This is useful for temporarily halting an agent without losing its process or context.

Arguments

Argument	Description
`<AGENT>`	Agent name to pause

Examples

Pause an Agent

tt interrupt backend

Output:

⏸️  Interrupted agent 'backend'
   Agent is now paused. Use 'tt resume backend' to continue.

Pause and Resume Workflow

tt interrupt backend          # Pause
# ... investigate an issue, send new instructions ...
tt send backend --urgent "Change approach: use Redis Streams instead"
tt resume backend             # Continue with new instructions

How It Works

Sets agent state to Paused in Redis
Emits an AgentInterrupted structured event
The agent loop detects Paused state at the top of each iteration
Agent sleeps (5s intervals) until state changes back to Idle via tt resume
All state transitions to Idle are guarded — they won’t overwrite Paused

When to Use

Redirect work: Pause an agent to change its instructions before it picks up the next message
Resource management: Temporarily free up CPU/API quota without killing the process
Debugging: Pause an agent to inspect its state or inbox
Coordination: Hold an agent while waiting for a dependency from another agent

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