4 Ways a 'Retired' launchd Job Kept Running on a 160+ Job Fleet — and the 3 Commands That Actually Stop It

Description and use

<p>I run more than 160 launchd jobs on a Mac that almost never reboots. That fleet is what carried me from a ¥100k/month student side gig to ¥600k juggling multiple jobs, back down to zero after a layoff, and then — six months of rebuilding a Claude Code autonomous setup later — past ¥1.2M/month in revenue. Keeping that automation alive has taught me something I didn't expect: cleanly <em>stopping</em> a job is far harder than starting one.</p> <p><strong>Renaming a file to <code>.plist.retired</code> does not stop the job. launchd keeps running it.</strong></p> <h2> Why this happens </h2> <p>

Problem

<p>I run more than 160 launchd jobs on a Mac that almost never reboots. That fleet is what carried me from a ¥100k/month student side gig to ¥600k juggling multiple jobs, back down to zero after a layoff, and then — six months of rebuilding a Claude Code autonomous setup later — past ¥1.2M/month in revenue. Keeping that automation alive has taught me something I didn't expect: cleanly <em>stopping</em> a job is far harder than starting one.</p> <p><strong>Renaming a file to <code>.plist.retired</code> does not stop the job. launchd keeps running it.</strong></p> <h2> Why this happens </h2> <p>

Outcome

<p>I run more than 160 launchd jobs on a Mac that almost never reboots. That fleet is what carried me from a ¥100k/month student side gig to ¥600k juggling multiple jobs, back down to zero after a layoff, and then — six months of rebuilding a Claude Code autonomous setup later — past ¥1.2M/month in revenue. Keeping that automation alive has taught me something I didn't expect: cleanly <em>stopping</em> a job is far harder than starting one.</p> <p><strong>Renaming a file to <code>.plist.retired</code> does not stop the job. launchd keeps running it.</strong></p> <h2> Why this happens </h2> <p>

Evidence

4 Ways a 'Retired' launchd Job Kept Running on a 160+ Job Fleet — and the 3 Commands That Actually Stop It

Source