diff --git a/docs/10-tracing-observability.md b/docs/10-tracing-observability.md
index 4568202e..188b1916 100644
--- a/docs/10-tracing-observability.md
+++ b/docs/10-tracing-observability.md
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ During cancellation:
 
 Trace finalization persists independently with a detached context (`context.WithoutCancel`), 5-second timeout, and exponential backoff retry (3 tries, max 10 total via retry queue). This ensures trace status writes don't fail silently due to cancellation.
 
-Stale recovery worker runs every 30 seconds and catches zombie traces (stuck in "running" state) older than 10 minutes. Threshold is conservative because it measures against `start_time`, not last activity — a tighter value would kill healthy long-running agent runs. (Follow-up: add `last_span_at` column to enable aggressive recovery of inactive runs.) Context values (traceID, collector) survive cancellation — only `ctx.Done()` and `ctx.Err()` change.
+Stale recovery is **currently disabled**. The implementation exists but the background loop is not started in `Collector.Start()`. Reason: the sweep condition is `start_time < NOW() - threshold`, which measures trace age rather than inactivity. Any threshold low enough to be useful (2–10 min) would kill healthy long-running agent runs (research chains, large code generation, extended shell commands). Re-enable only after adding a `last_span_at` column so recovery can gate on "no activity for N minutes" instead of "started > N min ago". Until then, zombie traces from gateway crashes may remain `running` in the DB — an accepted safety-net gap traded against false kills. The primary abort path (router 2-phase abort + `trace.status` WS event) handles the common case. Context values (traceID, collector) survive cancellation — only `ctx.Done()` and `ctx.Err()` change.
 
 ---
 
diff --git a/internal/tracing/collector.go b/internal/tracing/collector.go
index 66ecd082..cb0f6a5b 100644
--- a/internal/tracing/collector.go
+++ b/internal/tracing/collector.go
@@ -146,15 +146,28 @@ func (c *Collector) SetStatusBroadcaster(b StatusBroadcaster) {
 	c.broadcastStatus = b
 }
 
-// Start begins the background flush loop, retry worker, and stale recovery loop.
+// Start begins the background flush loop and retry worker.
+//
+// NOTE: staleRecoveryLoop is intentionally NOT started. The current implementation
+// sweeps traces by `start_time`, which would kill legitimate long-running agent
+// runs (research chains, large code generation, long shell commands routinely
+// exceed 10 minutes). Re-enable only after adding a `last_span_at` column so
+// recovery can gate on "no activity for N minutes" instead of "started > N min
+// ago". Until then, crashed/orphaned traces may remain `running` in DB — the
+// primary abort path (router 2-phase + trace.status WS event) handles the
+// common case; this is a safety-net gap we accept over false kills.
 func (c *Collector) Start() {
-	c.wg.Add(3) // flushLoop + retryWorker + staleRecoveryLoop
+	c.wg.Add(2) // flushLoop + retryWorker (staleRecoveryLoop disabled — see note above)
 	go c.flushLoop()
 	go c.retryWorker()
-	go c.staleRecoveryLoop()
+	// go c.staleRecoveryLoop() // disabled: would kill healthy long runs. See Start() godoc.
 	slog.Info("tracing collector started")
 }
 
+// keep staleRecoveryLoop reachable to silence "unused" linter; re-enabled in
+// Start() once last_span_at-based recovery lands.
+var _ = (*Collector).staleRecoveryLoop
+
 // Stop gracefully shuts down the collector, flushing remaining spans.
 func (c *Collector) Stop() {
 	close(c.stopCh)