{
  "slug": "do-not-freeze-the-chat",
  "title": "Do not freeze the chat on long jobs",
  "summary": "A four-minute job needs a visible status and a free conversation, or the user assumes it is broken.",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "tags": [
    "Systems",
    "AI agents"
  ],
  "body": [
    "Most agent replies take a few seconds. Generating a document is different: it writes code in a sandbox, renders a file, checks it and fixes it, and a real job takes one to four minutes.",
    "I asked my own agent to edit a report. The edit took four minutes, and when I sent “where is the report?” it waited behind the job with nothing on screen but “typing…”. If I could not tell whether anything was happening, a customer never would.",
    "The fix was to let go of the chat after 15 seconds and run the job in the background, with one status message edited in place to show the steps and elapsed time. If you change your mind halfway, the job restarts with both requests. Anything unrelated runs alongside it."
  ],
  "url": "https://www.thekush.codes/notes/do-not-freeze-the-chat",
  "fullPost": "https://www.thekush.codes/blog/long-jobs-without-a-frozen-chat",
  "author": {
    "name": "Kush Ahuja",
    "url": "https://www.thekush.codes"
  }
}