What Is an Orphan Process?
An orphan process is a still-running process whose parent has already terminated. The operating system reparents it to the init process, which inherits the duty of collecting its exit status when it finishes. Orphaning is normal and harmless as long as the new parent reaps the child.
Why it matters
Orphaned background processes left behind by a finished CI step can keep holding ports or files on a reused runner. Knowing they get reparented to init explains why a proper init is needed to clean them up.
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