Colab Idle Guard

Reports Google Colab activity and cell-execution state to the local Colab Idle Guard app so idle GPU runtimes can be released.

Walked away from Colab and came back to find your GPU runtime still running, quietly eating compute units? Idle Guard for Colab watches for that and steps in. How it works After a period with no Colab activity (30 minutes by default) and no cells running, Idle Guard warns you with a countdown. If you don’t respond and automatic release is turned on, it disconnects the runtime using Colab’s own “Disconnect and delete runtime” command. Your work comes first • Never releases a runtime while a cell is executing • If it can’t confirm the runtime is idle, it does nothing • Every safety check runs again right before release • Automatic release is OFF by default. Out of the box, it only warns you Private by design • Talks only to the companion app on your own computer (127.0.0.1) • Records activity types (click, key, scroll), never what you type or notebook content • No telemetry, no accounts, no data sent to any server Requirements This extension works together with the free Colab Idle Guard desktop app for Windows 11. It also watches Colab in VS Code. Download it and setup instructions: https://github.com/MSteier/colab-idle-guard Note: Releasing a runtime deletes its in-memory state and files under /content. Your notebook itself is kept. Published by Mist Technologies. Unofficial project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Google. “Colab” is a trademark of Google LLC. Category: Developer Tools If you change the name, also update "name" in manifest.json to match before uploading the ZIP. Reviewers like those to line up.