process-cleanup

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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.

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Sourcepaulrberg/agent-skills

Added on2026-03-21

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add paulrberg/agent-skills process-cleanup

SKILL.md Content

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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.

bash

# 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: