Agent waiting for a runner slot

An agent shown as WAITING on runner slots has finished its dependency and time-based waits, but has not yet entered the execution loop. SASE limits live root agents globally using max_running_agents (default: 10). A prompt can use %wait(runners=N) to override the threshold for that launch.

The queue is first-in, first-out across all projects. A live earlier waiter is therefore allowed to start before later launches, even when a later launch has a higher threshold. Child agents are exempt so a running parent can safely wait for child work.

To diagnose a wait:

1. Check active and waiting agents with sase agent list or the ACE Agents tab.
2. Inspect the launch's waiting.json. wait_runners is the effective existing-runner threshold and slot_requested_at is its FIFO queue time.
3. Raise max_running_agents in sase.yml if more concurrency is safe. Parked agents reread configuration and normally react within about two seconds.
4. Kill an unwanted parked agent normally. Dead or stale waiter PIDs are ignored automatically and cannot wedge the queue.

The slot gate runs in each agent process under a global file lock. It does not depend on the axe daemon, so restarting axe does not release or repair a slot wait. A %wait(runners=0) launch is intentionally a drain barrier: it starts only after all currently running root agents finish, and later launches queue behind it.