diff --git a/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/OnboardingRoot.tsx b/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/OnboardingRoot.tsx
index 30fd30b4..3f207ece 100644
--- a/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/OnboardingRoot.tsx
+++ b/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/OnboardingRoot.tsx
@@ -50,6 +50,16 @@ const OnboardingRoot: React.FC = () => {
     dispatch,
   ]);
 
+  // The welcome chat IS the user launching their first agent, so once it finishes, mark
+  // launch_agent done. Without this the post-win nudge repeats "Launch your first Agent" they
+  // just did: the skipIf baseline-capture re-arms on every completedSteps change and tends to
+  // snapshot the real send as "pre-existing", which freezes the step as un-completable.
+  useEffect(() => {
+    if (!progress.initialized || !firstAgentDone) return;
+    if ((progress.completedSteps ?? []).includes('launch_agent')) return;
+    dispatch(markStepCompleted('launch_agent'));
+  }, [firstAgentDone, progress.initialized, progress.completedSteps, dispatch]);
+
   // First run: the cursor pops into existence, pauses, then moves to and clicks the New Agent
   // button (welcome_open step) which spawns the welcome chat. Fires once, only on the dashboard
   // with a way to run and nothing launched yet. Fail-safe: if the cursor can't run, a manual
diff --git a/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/steps/skipPredicates.ts b/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/steps/skipPredicates.ts
index 902ac30d..7459ad38 100644
--- a/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/steps/skipPredicates.ts
+++ b/frontend/src/app/components/Onboarding/steps/skipPredicates.ts
@@ -59,7 +59,10 @@ export function isYoutubeEnabled(s: RootState): boolean {
 
 export function hasAnyAgentLaunched(s: RootState): boolean {
   const sessions = s.agents?.sessions ?? {};
-  return Object.keys(sessions).length > 0;
+  // A draft is an unsent chat, not a launched agent. Counting drafts let the welcome draft
+  // pre-satisfy launch_agent at baseline-capture time, which froze the step as "pre-existing"
+  // so it never auto-completed, leaving "Launch your first Agent" stuck to-do after the chat.
+  return Object.values(sessions).some((x: any) => x?.status && x.status !== 'draft');
 }
 
 /** True once any agent has actually FINISHED (not just started). Used to hold the