🎩 NIM API Watchdog

A lightweight Python health check for the NVIDIA NIM API. Designed to run as a cron script for Hermes Agent — silent when the API is down, speaks only when it recovers.

Why?

NIM's free tier has rate limits. When you hit them mid-task, your AI agent stops dead. Instead of manually checking "is it back yet?", this watchdog:

• Pings the API every hour (1 token per check — basically free)
• Stays silent when the API is still down (no spam!)
• Stays silent when the API was already up (no spam!)
• Only speaks when the API recovers from a downtime
• If you had an active task, it signals your agent to auto-resume

How It Works

The script tracks API status in a state file (/tmp/nim_watchdog_state.json):

Last Status	Current Status	Output
down	up	NIM_API_RECOVERED|NO_TASK or NIM_API_RECOVERED|HAS_TASK|<description>
up	up	(silent)
up	down	(silent)
down	down	(silent)
unknown	up	NIM_API_RECOVERED|...

Setup

1. Set your API key

export NVIDIA_API_KEY="nvapi-..."

Or let the script read it from ~/.hermes/.env automatically.

2. Run it

python nim_watchdog.py

Exit code 0 = API is up. Exit code 1 = API is down or key missing.

3. Set up a cron job (Hermes Agent)

In Hermes, create a cron job that uses this script:

hermes cron add \
  --name "NIM Resume Watchdog" \
  --schedule "every 1h" \
  --script nim_watchdog.py \
  --prompt "The NIM API just recovered. If the signal says HAS_TASK, auto-resume the task without asking. If NO_TASK, notify the user the API is back." \
  --deliver origin

4. Task auto-resume (optional)

Before starting a long task, write a description to the task file:

echo "Setting up nginx reverse proxy" > /tmp/nim_active_task.txt

When the API recovers, the watchdog reads this file and signals your agent to resume.

Clear it when done:

rm /tmp/nim_active_task.txt

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
NVIDIA_API_KEY	(required)	Your NIM API key
NIM_MODEL	z-ai/glm-5.1	Model to ping (override via env var)
STATE_FILE	/tmp/nim_watchdog_state.json	Where to track up/down state
TASK_FILE	/tmp/nim_active_task.txt	Active task description
TIMEOUT	15	Request timeout in seconds

Token Cost

Each check uses 1 completion token. On NIM's free tier (1,000 credits/month, 1 credit = 1,000 tokens), running this every hour costs ~0.72 credits/month. Negligible.

License

MIT

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Built with ❤️ by cappy-dev — a Bonneter who got tired of checking if the API was back up 🎩✨