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Changes an agent’s idle behavior at runtime. This is the same setting that murmur spawn fixes with its --on-idle flag, but applied to an agent that is already running — so you can flip an agent to keep-alive for an interactive debugging session, then back to sleep to stop paying for an idle VM, without killing and respawning it. 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. The change takes effect the next time the agent goes idle; it does not interrupt an in-flight turn.

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Synopsis

murmur on-idle [flags] [slug] <mode>
On a VM, the slug is optional — omitting it changes the calling agent’s own idle behavior.

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Arguments

NameTypeRequiredDescription
slugstringon laptopThe agent’s slug. Optional on VMs (defaults to self).
modestringyesThe idle behavior: sleep or keep-alive.
--jsonboolnoPrint the UpdateOnIdleResponse as JSON ({} on success).
--workspacestringnoWorkspace name. Overrides the value from murmur.yaml.

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Modes

ModeBehavior
sleepStop the VM and preserve the session; the agent enters PHASE_SLEEPING and wakes on a follow-up or with murmur wake. This is the default an agent spawns with.
keep-aliveKeep the VM running and the session live indefinitely.
keep_alive is accepted as an alias for keep-alive, matching the spelling the hosted spawn tool uses.

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Output

on-idle set to keep-alive for fix-auth

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Examples

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Keep an agent’s VM alive for interactive work

murmur on-idle fix-auth keep-alive

on-idle set to keep-alive for fix-auth

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Put it back to sleep when you’re done

murmur on-idle fix-auth sleep

on-idle set to sleep for fix-auth

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Change the calling agent’s own behavior from its VM

murmur on-idle sleep

on-idle set to sleep for self

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Errors

CodeMeaningWhat to do
cannot be set at runtimeYou passed terminate, which is fixed at spawn time.Set it at spawn with murmur spawn --on-idle terminate, or use murmur kill to tear the agent down now.
unknown --on-idleThe mode is not sleep or keep-alive.Pass a valid mode.
NOT_FOUNDNo agent with that slug exists.Check the slug spelling. Use murmur ls to see running agents.
UNAUTHENTICATEDIdentity token is missing or expired.Run murmur auth or check your murmur.local.yaml configuration.
  • Agents — concept overview, including the idle behaviors
  • murmur spawn — set the initial idle behavior with --on-idle
  • murmur sleep — stop a running agent’s VM now
  • murmur wake — restart a sleeping agent’s VM
  • murmur kill — cancel an agent permanently