fix: Allow tools running in the terminal to prevent the workspace from stopping due to idling

[vrubezhny]

This adds support for a CLI Watcher in che-machine-exec to prevent DevWorkspace idling when long-running CLI tools are running in the terminal.

The watcher is user-configurable via a '.noidle' YAML file. No admin privileges are required.

How configuration is resolved:

The '.noidle' file is located by searching in the following order:

• A path specified by the CLI_WATCHER_CONFIG environment variable
• Searching upward from the current project directory toward $PROJECTS_ROOT, looking for .noidle
• Falling back to $HOME/.noidle (e.g. ~/.noidle)
• If not found, CLI Watcher waits and checks again on the next poll

Example .noidle configuration:

enabled: true
watchedCommands:
  - helm
  - odo
  - sleep
checkPeriodSeconds: 60

Where:

• enabled: Enables or disables the CLI watcher (boolean)
• watchedCommands: List of command names to monitor
• checkPeriodSeconds: Polling interval in seconds (default is 60)

Benefits:

• Works entirely in user space — no container or cluster admin config needed
• Supports live updates (file can be added, edited, or removed while running)
• Helps avoid idle timeout disconnects during long-running CLI workflows
• Allows workspace authors to tailor idle behavior to specific tools

Issue: eclipse-che/che#23529

[azatsarynnyy]

👍

[tolusha]

@vrubezhny
Hi. Could you provide steps how I can test changes?

[akurinnoy]

Works as expected

[tolusha]

There is extremely rare case, but when SECONDS_OF_DW_INACTIVITY_BEFORE_IDLING is less than 60, then cli watcher doesn't prevent workspace from being stopped.

[vrubezhny]

@vrubezhny Hi. Could you provide steps how I can test changes?

To test it:

• I've built che-machine-exec docker image and published it at https://quay.io/repository/vrubezhny/che-machine-exec

• Then I've created a PR in che-code that uses my che-machine-exec image instead of the original one: [Draft] Test che-machine-exec with cli watcher che-incubator/che-code#567

• The che-code PR, after it was built on GH, had given me an image for the Che Code editor that I've used when creating a che DevSpaces WS on Sandbox

• Then, as comment say, I created the .noidle config file inside the Workspace project to track for sleep command running and then I was executing that command with different argument values + watching the log by tail -f /checode/entrypoint-logs.txt to see how che-machine-exec reacts on its presence.

[vrubezhny]

There is extremely rare case, but when SECONDS_OF_DW_INACTIVITY_BEFORE_IDLING is less than 60, then cli watcher doesn't prevent workspace from being stopped.

Yes, if the check for a command running happens with the less frequency that it may skip some activity events. One can configure .noodle to have checkPeriodSeconds's value less than SECONDS_OF_DW_INACTIVITY_BEFORE_IDLING 's one, but:

• Do we really need to have such a short Idling timeout (imho, it's not reasonable at all)
• Making the checks more frequent adds unnecessary load on the CPU/file read-write operations, etc.
• IMHO, setting the checkPeriodSeconds value to be 1/3 of SECONDS_OF_DW_INACTIVITY_BEFORE_IDLING would make it work fine