Sleep and wake
What wakes your room and what keeps it awake. Awake time is what you pay for.
You pay for awake time; the rates are on Pricing and credit.
When it sleeps
| After | It sleeps |
|---|---|
| Your agent answers a Telegram message | about 20 seconds later, unless another message arrives |
| Any other wake | once it has been quiet for 5 minutes with nothing connected |
What keeps it awake
| Keeps it awake | Until |
|---|---|
| A conversation in progress | your agent answers |
| An open dashboard tab, even in the background | the tab closes (see the Warning below) |
| An SSH connection | you disconnect |
| Background work your agent started | 5 minutes at most |
| A scheduled job | about 5 minutes after each run. Jobs more frequent than that keep it awake for good: ask your agent to run them less often |
| A failing model call your agent keeps retrying | it stops; meanwhile it doesn't answer. Check your balance and its model |
Background work
Sleep never kills a process: it freezes it, and the process carries on at the next wake.
- A job Hermes started in the background holds the room awake for up to 5 minutes after the turn. Then the room sleeps, and Botel wakes it a few more times to let the job run. Each wake is awake time, and a long job may not finish in them.
- A service is any such process 1 hour after it started, time asleep included, such as a web server. It holds nothing and gets no more check-in wakes; it resumes at the next real wake, such as a request to its port.
- Anything Hermes didn't start, such as a program you launch over SSH, never holds the room awake.
What wakes it
- A Telegram message to your bot.
- Opening the dashboard.
- Any visit to an open port, from anyone with the address if it's public.
- A job your agent scheduled.
Warning: Close the dashboard tab when you're done. An open tab keeps your room awake or keeps waking it, even in the background, and you pay for that time.
Scheduled jobs
Scheduled jobs run only while the room is awake. Before sleeping, the room asks to be woken for the next one due, and the room page shows "Scheduled to wake …". If a reminder matters, check that line.
How fast it wakes
Usually in a moment; after a long sleep, several seconds. If a wake from a Telegram message takes more than 5 seconds, the chat shows "Waking up — I'll answer shortly.".
Reading Activity
The room's Activity lists each wake with its reason. Two need explaining:
- "a check-in": Botel woke the room for a scheduled job or to let background work finish. No "Scheduled to wake" line? Ask your agent what it left running.
- "a message arrived" when nobody wrote: a dashboard or port wake can be labelled this way, and can put the waking notice in your Telegram chat. Look for an open dashboard tab or a public port.
Questions? Write to [email protected].