Keep Awake

Keep Awake prevents the computer from sleeping while Kilo sessions are running. It does not keep the display on and does not disable screen locking. Agents can continue to use files, network services, and available credentials while the computer is locked.

Keep Awake is off by default and is available on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Turn Keep Awake on or off with any of these controls:

ControlAction
Command PaletteRun Toggle Keep Awake (kilo-code.new.toggleCaffeination).
Chat slash commandType /caffeinate. The aliases /caffenate and /keep-awake also work.
Agent ManagerSelect the coffee icon in the Agent Manager header.

The Agent Manager coffee icon reflects the same state as the other controls.

Kilo holds the sleep inhibitor only while at least one session is busy or retrying, or while a session has a scheduled wakeup, and releases it when every session is idle and has no pending wakeup. Keep Awake stops when the VS Code window reloads.

The first time you enable Keep Awake, VS Code asks for confirmation. The answer is stored in the extension's global state, not in kilo.jsonc. Enable Keep Awake only in a trusted workspace. It is not available in a remote window.

⚠️Warning

Keep Awake prevents system sleep only. It does not keep the display on and does not disable screen locking. Agents may continue to access files, network services, and available credentials while the computer is locked. Enable it only if your organization's device policy permits it. On Linux, Keep Awake can also block manual suspend; turn it off before suspending.

Platform support

PlatformMechanism
macOS/usr/bin/caffeinate
Linuxsystemd-inhibit
WindowsSetThreadExecutionState through PowerShell

If the required command is not available, Kilo reports that Keep Awake is unavailable and does not start the inhibitor.