To track the https://github.com/eclipse/che/issues/22523 issue progress creating RFE.

When a user is not interacting with VS Code for more than a given amount of time (specified in checluster devEnvironments.secondsOfInactivityBeforeIdling), the workspace get stopped automatically. This can be frustrating as long running task started in the cloud dev environment (i.e. a build or ML task) will be aborted if the user doesn't interact with IDE.

Describe the solution you'd like

There can be a few options:

1. Configure the VS Code extension che-activity-tracker to track also events like onDidChangeActiveTerminal or onDidChangeTerminalState
2. Introduce a new Devfile attribute to allow disabling workspace idling
3. Introduce a new Devfile attribute to allow avoiding idling if specific processes are running

Option 1) looks the simplest although if the long running process doesn't produce an output the workspace will get idled anyway.

Option 2) disable idling completely for the workspace using the devfile but that may be overkill (we still when the long running task have completed and the user is not active).

Option 3) would be the more effective but require more in intrusive changes (machine-exec and devworkspace-operator) and still require.

Describe alternatives you've considered

There are a few workarounds to disable idling for a single workspace today:

• Manually disable che-activity-tracker after starting a workspace
• Add the env variable SECONDS_OF_DW_INACTIVITY_BEFORE_IDLING="-1" in the devfile