Jupyter Notebooks and RStudio

Interactive compute environments like Jupyter and RStudio have a specific challenge with idle detection: the browser tab maintains a TCP connection to the server even when you haven't touched it in hours. Without careful configuration, the instance would never consider itself idle.

spore.host handles this with process-based idle detection — the instance stays alive as long as the notebook server process is running, and stops when you explicitly disconnect.

RStudio

RStudio's server process is named rsession. Tell spored to watch for it:

spawn launch \
  --name rstudio \
  --instance-type r6i.2xlarge \
  --ttl 8h \
  --active-processes rsession \
  --idle-timeout 2h \
  --slack-workspace T03NE3GTY

With --active-processes rsession, the instance is considered active whenever an R session is open. The idle timeout (--idle-timeout 2h) only fires if both conditions are true: no active R sessions AND low CPU/network activity for 2 hours.

Save it as a default

If you always launch RStudio environments, save this once:

spawn defaults set active-processes rsession
spawn defaults set idle-timeout 2h
spawn defaults set slack-workspace T03NE3GTY

Then just launch with:

spawn launch --name rstudio --instance-type r6i.2xlarge --ttl 8h

Jupyter

Jupyter's kernel process is named jupyter. For Jupyter Lab or Notebook:

spawn launch \
  --name jupyter \
  --instance-type c6i.4xlarge \
  --ttl 8h \
  --active-processes jupyter \
  --idle-timeout 1h

If you run multiple tools on the same instance:

spawn launch \
  --name analysis \
  --instance-type r6i.4xlarge \
  --ttl 12h \
  --active-processes "rsession,jupyter"

Notifications for interactive sessions

For interactive sessions, the most useful notifications are TTL warnings — you want to know before the instance terminates so you can extend it or save your work:

With --slack-workspace set, you'll receive a DM 5 minutes before the TTL expires:

⏱️ rstudio terminates in 5 minutes

Respond directly in Slack: /spore extend rstudio 4h

Collaborative sessions

If multiple researchers share an RStudio or Jupyter instance, anyone who has been registered with spore-bot can extend the TTL from Slack without needing SSH access. See Slack Setup for how to register users.

Hibernation for cost savings

For sessions that run overnight but aren't actively used, hibernation is a good option. The RAM state (including in-memory data) is preserved:

spawn launch \
  --name rstudio \
  --instance-type r6i.8xlarge \
  --ttl 5d \
  --hibernate-on-idle \
  --idle-timeout 3h \
  --active-processes rsession

When idle for 3 hours with no active R sessions, the instance hibernates. Resume it with /spore start rstudio and pick up exactly where you left off.