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How to Tell When a Coding Agent Has Actually Finished

An idle signal tells you a coding agent stopped processing, not that its work is correct. Check for blockers, inspect the artifact, and verify the requested outcomes.
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A coding agent stopping is not the same as the task being finished. Treat an idle or “done” signal as evidence that the run ended or the agent believes it completed the work—not proof that the requested result is correct. Before relying on it, check for blockers, inspect the output, and verify each requirement against the result.

What does “finished” mean?

There are two separate questions: has the agent stopped working, and has it delivered what you asked for? A platform can answer the first with a run-state event or status. The second requires examining the agent’s claim and the work itself.

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GitHub’s Copilot SDK documentation makes this distinction explicit. Its session.idle event is emitted when the tool-use loop ends; it means the agent stopped processing and is ready for another message. GitHub calls it a reliable “done” signal in that mechanical sense, while noting that it is not a semantic judgment that the task is complete. GitHub Copilot SDK session documentation.

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How to interpret common completion signals

Signal What it tells you What it does not establish
Copilot SDK session.idle The tool-use loop ended and the agent is ready for another message. That the requested work is correct or complete.
Copilot SDK session.task_complete The model explicitly considers the overall task fulfilled. The event may include a summary and is persisted in the event log. That the claim is accurate. The signal is optional and best-effort, so it may be absent, including after an interruption or ordinary question-and-answer exchange.
GitHub cloud-agent task record Task state, associated sessions, timestamps, and artifacts can be inspected. A permanent API contract: the documented endpoints are public preview and may change.
OpenAI Agents API progress events or webhooks An application can receive updates about progress, completion, or a need for input. That an output passes a universal code-correctness test.

These names and behaviors are product-specific; do not assume another agent platform uses the same event vocabulary or guarantees. See the Copilot SDK session documentation, GitHub Copilot agent API documentation, and OpenAI Agents API overview.

How to verify a run before trusting it

  1. Confirm that the run reached a terminal state. Use the platform’s documented status or event to establish that processing stopped. For the Copilot SDK, session.idle is the loop-ended signal, not a correctness verdict.
  2. Check whether anything is waiting on you. Look for an error, a permission decision, an unanswered question, or a status indicating that input is needed. A paused run is not necessarily a successful one, and status labels vary by platform.
  3. Read the agent’s completion message. Treat its summary as a claim about what it believes it did. In the Copilot SDK, session.task_complete is an explicit but optional signal of that belief.
  4. Inspect the artifact. Review the code diff, changed files, pull request, or other output exposed by the platform. GitHub’s cloud-agent API documentation describes task records with associated sessions and artifacts; its endpoints are public preview and subject to change.
  5. Match the result to the original acceptance criteria. For every requested outcome, identify evidence in the output. Run relevant tests, builds, linters, or manual checks where appropriate, and report any that were skipped or failed.
  6. State what remains unverified. If requirements are incomplete, errors remain, or behavior has not been checked, say the run ended but the work is not verified complete.
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What passing checks can—and cannot—tell you

Tests and other project checks provide evidence about the cases they cover. A passing suite does not prove requirements that the suite never tests, and a generated pull request or green status is not by itself a guarantee of success. Verification means connecting the original request to observable output and checks, while being candid about gaps.

There is no universal checklist certified by the cited platform documentation. Adapt the checks to the project and the acceptance criteria rather than treating any single event, status, or test result as conclusive.

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