diff --git a/skills/democracy/SKILL.md b/skills/democracy/SKILL.md
index d4cb99e..c2aa7ca 100644
--- a/skills/democracy/SKILL.md
+++ b/skills/democracy/SKILL.md
@@ -95,7 +95,8 @@ stays silent below the thresholds.
 - **Warn**: the chair and every session get the biggest consumers; the chair
   plans a cleanup and grants no large slot.
 - **Stop**: new heavy jobs are blocked in every session (teardown commands
-  never), and the hook runs the configured low-risk cleanup by itself.
+  never), and the hook runs the configured low-risk cleanup by itself; it
+  skips every worktree where a gate or deploy process still runs.
 - **Critical**: additionally a desktop alarm to the operator. A running stack
   is torn down only with the operator's OK.
 - A measured fall that would reach the critical threshold within the
diff --git a/skills/democracy/scripts/watch.py b/skills/democracy/scripts/watch.py
index 4499b0c..1a4a227 100755
--- a/skills/democracy/scripts/watch.py
+++ b/skills/democracy/scripts/watch.py
@@ -25,7 +25,8 @@ projection_minutes, interval_seconds, cache_interval_seconds, heavy_commands,
 never_block (regexes), cleanup (shell commands), worktree_cleanup (shell
 commands with {worktree}), worktrees_command (shell command printing the
 running stacks' worktree paths, one per line), worktree_marker (path relative
-to a worktree that must exist), cache_dirs, cache_budget_percent,
+to a worktree that must exist), busy_processes (process names; a worktree
+where one of them runs is skipped), cache_dirs, cache_budget_percent,
 slot_need_gb {kind: GB}, notify (argv the alert text is appended to),
 load_limits {cpu_percent, mem_percent, sample_seconds, kinds}: admit for a
 kind listed in kinds also needs CPU busy and RAM used below the limits.
@@ -313,9 +314,25 @@ def running_worktrees(cfg: dict) -> list[str]:
     return [t for t in trees if os.path.exists(os.path.join(t, cfg["worktree_marker"]))]
 
 
+def busy(tree: str, names: list[str]) -> bool:
+    root = os.path.realpath(tree)
+    for pid in filter(str.isdigit, os.listdir("/proc")):
+        try:
+            if Path(f"/proc/{pid}/comm").read_text(encoding="utf-8").strip() not in names:
+                continue
+            cwd = os.readlink(f"/proc/{pid}/cwd")
+        except OSError:
+            continue
+        if cwd == root or cwd.startswith(root + os.sep):
+            return True
+    return False
+
+
 def run_cleanup(cfg: dict) -> list[str]:
     commands = list(cfg["cleanup"])
     for tree in running_worktrees(cfg):
+        if busy(tree, cfg["busy_processes"]):
+            continue
         commands += [t.format(worktree=shlex.quote(tree)) for t in cfg["worktree_cleanup"]]
     results = []
     for command in commands:
diff --git a/tests/test_watch.py b/tests/test_watch.py
index 8e0f30d..d300106 100644
--- a/tests/test_watch.py
+++ b/tests/test_watch.py
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ class TestWatchCommands(unittest.TestCase):
             "worktree_cleanup": [],
             "worktrees_command": "true",
             "worktree_marker": "Makefile",
+            "busy_processes": ["sleep"],
             "cache_dirs": [str(self.cache)],
             "cache_budget_percent": 3,
             "slot_need_gb": {"swarm": 30, "test": 0.001},
@@ -158,6 +159,21 @@ class TestWatchCommands(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual((marked / "cleaned").read_text(encoding="utf-8"), "x\n")
         self.assertFalse((foreign / "cleaned").exists())
 
+    def test_full_cleanup_skips_a_worktree_where_a_busy_process_runs(self):
+        idle, gated = self.base / "idle", self.base / "gated"
+        for tree in (idle, gated):
+            (tree / "sub").mkdir(parents=True)
+            (tree / "Makefile").write_text("", encoding="utf-8")
+        gate = subprocess.Popen(["sleep", "60"], cwd=gated / "sub")
+        self.addCleanup(gate.wait)
+        self.addCleanup(gate.kill)
+        self.cfg["worktrees_command"] = f"echo {idle}; echo {gated}"
+        self.cfg["worktree_cleanup"] = ["echo x >> {worktree}/cleaned"]
+        self._write_config()
+        self.assertEqual(self._run("cleanup", "--full").returncode, 0)
+        self.assertTrue((idle / "cleaned").exists())
+        self.assertFalse((gated / "cleaned").exists())
+
     def test_without_config_every_command_is_a_no_op(self):
         self.config.unlink()
         result = self._run("status")