murmur spawn fixes with its --on-idle flag), the idle timeout (--idle-timeout — how long the agent waits idle before acting on the policy), or both. 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, or stretch a chatty agent’s idle window past the default 20 minutes — 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.
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 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
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
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