--on-idle setting on murmur spawn. The --idle-timeout sets how long the agent waits after a turn that a person started or interacted with before applying the policy. You can set an agent to keep-alive for an interactive debugging session, return it to sleep to stop paying for an idle VM, or extend its idle window beyond the default 20 minutes without respawning it. The --sleep-timeout sets how long the agent’s VM may stay asleep before the agent ends and the VM is released.
Only sleep and keep-alive can be set at runtime. terminate is a structural decision fixed when the agent spawns (murmur spawn --on-idle terminate) and cannot be changed mid-flight; to tear an agent down now, use murmur kill.
A mode change takes effect the next time the agent goes idle; it does not interrupt an in-flight turn. A timeout change takes effect immediately: an agent already parked in its idle wait re-arms against the new timeout, so shortening it below the time already idled puts the agent to sleep right away.
Synopsis
--idle-timeout or --sleep-timeout is set (a timeout-only update).
Arguments
Modes
keep_alive is accepted as an alias for keep-alive, matching the spelling the hosted spawn tool uses.
Output
on-idle set to <mode> for <slug>, idle timeout set to <duration> for <slug>, and sleep timeout set to <duration> for <slug>. Lifting the sleep timeout with 0 prints sleep timeout lifted for <slug> — it sleeps until something wakes it. On a VM with the slug omitted, <slug> reads self.
Examples
Keep an agent’s VM alive for interactive work
Put it back to sleep when you’re done
Change the calling agent’s own behavior from its VM
Stretch an agent’s idle window without touching the mode
Let a sleeping agent stay parked for two weeks
Errors
Related
- Agents: concept overview, including the idle behaviors
murmur spawn: set the initial idle behavior with--on-idlemurmur sleep: stop a running agent’s VM nowmurmur wake: restart a sleeping agent’s VMmurmur kill: cancel an agent permanently