From cb2b130ca20da9aeb1f19cc46e55631700f95b6c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: gastown/crew/max <steve.yegge@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2026 21:24:23 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] fix(crew): parallelize crew start to prevent hanging

Start crew members concurrently instead of sequentially. Previously,
`gt crew start --all` could hang for minutes because each crew member
was started one at a time, with each waiting up to 60 seconds for
Claude to initialize.

With parallel startup, all crew members start simultaneously and
the total wait time is bounded by the slowest individual startup.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 internal/cmd/crew_lifecycle.go | 78 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 63 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)

diff --git a/internal/cmd/crew_lifecycle.go b/internal/cmd/crew_lifecycle.go
index c55ded1f..d95db2a3 100644
--- a/internal/cmd/crew_lifecycle.go
+++ b/internal/cmd/crew_lifecycle.go
@@ -1,15 +1,18 @@
 package cmd
 
 import (
+	"errors"
 	"fmt"
 	"os"
 	"os/exec"
 	"path/filepath"
 	"strings"
+	"sync"
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
 	"github.com/steveyegge/gastown/internal/beads"
+	"github.com/steveyegge/gastown/internal/config"
 	"github.com/steveyegge/gastown/internal/constants"
 	"github.com/steveyegge/gastown/internal/crew"
 	"github.com/steveyegge/gastown/internal/mail"
@@ -300,28 +303,73 @@ func runCrewStart(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
 		}
 	}
 
-	// Start each crew member
+	// Resolve account config once for all crew members
+	townRoot, _ := workspace.Find(r.Path)
+	if townRoot == "" {
+		townRoot = filepath.Dir(r.Path)
+	}
+	accountsPath := constants.MayorAccountsPath(townRoot)
+	claudeConfigDir, _, _ := config.ResolveAccountConfigDir(accountsPath, crewAccount)
+
+	// Build start options (shared across all crew members)
+	opts := crew.StartOptions{
+		Account:         crewAccount,
+		ClaudeConfigDir: claudeConfigDir,
+		AgentOverride:   crewAgentOverride,
+	}
+
+	// Start each crew member in parallel
+	type result struct {
+		name    string
+		err     error
+		skipped bool // true if session was already running
+	}
+	results := make(chan result, len(crewNames))
+	var wg sync.WaitGroup
+
+	fmt.Printf("Starting %d crew member(s) in %s...\n", len(crewNames), rigName)
+
+	for _, name := range crewNames {
+		wg.Add(1)
+		go func(crewName string) {
+			defer wg.Done()
+			err := crewMgr.Start(crewName, opts)
+			skipped := errors.Is(err, crew.ErrSessionRunning)
+			if skipped {
+				err = nil // Not an error, just already running
+			}
+			results <- result{name: crewName, err: err, skipped: skipped}
+		}(name)
+	}
+
+	// Wait for all goroutines to complete
+	go func() {
+		wg.Wait()
+		close(results)
+	}()
+
+	// Collect results
 	var lastErr error
 	startedCount := 0
-	for _, name := range crewNames {
-		// Set the start.go flags before calling runStartCrew
-		startCrewRig = rigName
-		startCrewAccount = crewAccount
-		startCrewAgentOverride = crewAgentOverride
-
-		// Use rig/name format for runStartCrew
-		fullName := rigName + "/" + name
-		if err := runStartCrew(cmd, []string{fullName}); err != nil {
-			fmt.Printf("Error starting %s/%s: %v\n", rigName, name, err)
-			lastErr = err
+	skippedCount := 0
+	for res := range results {
+		if res.err != nil {
+			fmt.Printf("  %s %s/%s: %v\n", style.ErrorPrefix, rigName, res.name, res.err)
+			lastErr = res.err
+		} else if res.skipped {
+			fmt.Printf("  %s %s/%s: already running\n", style.Dim.Render("○"), rigName, res.name)
+			skippedCount++
 		} else {
+			fmt.Printf("  %s %s/%s: started\n", style.SuccessPrefix, rigName, res.name)
 			startedCount++
 		}
 	}
 
-	if startedCount > 0 {
-		fmt.Printf("\n%s Started %d crew member(s) in %s\n",
-			style.Bold.Render("✓"), startedCount, r.Name)
+	// Summary
+	fmt.Println()
+	if startedCount > 0 || skippedCount > 0 {
+		fmt.Printf("%s Started %d, skipped %d (already running) in %s\n",
+			style.Bold.Render("✓"), startedCount, skippedCount, r.Name)
 	}
 
 	return lastErr