Unattended Power

Unattended-Run Power Setup (Windows)

Configure the PC so a long unattended task keeps running while wasting as little energy as possible: sleep disabled (sleep would freeze the task), display off after 2 minutes (the display is the biggest zero-value consumer), power plan left alone (throttling the CPU makes work take longer — a net energy loss).

Arguments

• (none) — apply the setup for the current run.
• shutdown — additionally shut the PC down when this session's work fully completes.
• restore — put the original settings back now (use if a previous session never restored).

Step 1 — Capture current settings (ALWAYS before changing anything)

$scheme = (powercfg /getactivescheme) -replace '.*GUID: ([a-f0-9-]+).*','$1'
powercfg /q $scheme SUB_VIDEO VIDEOIDLE | Select-String "Current (AC|DC) Power Setting"
powercfg /q $scheme SUB_SLEEP STANDBYIDLE | Select-String "Current (AC|DC) Power Setting"
powercfg /q $scheme SUB_SLEEP HIBERNATEIDLE | Select-String "Current (AC|DC) Power Setting"

The hex values are SECONDS (e.g. 0x708 = 1800s = 30 min; 0x0 = never). Convert to minutes and write a restore script to the FIXED path $env:TEMP\unattended-power-restore.ps1 (fixed so a later session can find it) with the six original values:

# unattended-power restore script — original values captured 
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-dc 
powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 
powercfg /change standby-timeout-dc 
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-ac 
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-dc 

If the captured values ALREADY look like this skill's setup (sleep 0, monitor 2), a previous session probably never restored — tell the user and ask whether to use the known Windows defaults (monitor 30 AC / 3 DC, sleep 30 AC / 10 DC) for the restore script instead.

Step 2 — Apply the unattended setup

powercfg /change monitor-timeout-ac 2
powercfg /change monitor-timeout-dc 2
powercfg /change standby-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change standby-timeout-dc 0
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-ac 0
powercfg /change hibernate-timeout-dc 0

Hibernate matters (learned live 2026-07-10): disabling standby alone is NOT enough — a separate hibernate idle timer (30 min AC on this machine) suspended the PC mid-run and killed the network stack (ERR_NETWORK_IO_SUSPENDED). Both timers must be zeroed. Note: a closed laptop lid still sleeps the machine regardless of these settings — leave the lid open.

Verify sleep is really off (must print 0x00000000 for AC and DC):

$scheme = (powercfg /getactivescheme) -replace '.*GUID: ([a-f0-9-]+).*','$1'
powercfg /q $scheme SUB_SLEEP STANDBYIDLE | Select-String "Current (AC|DC) Power Setting"

Tell the user: sleep is off, screen sleeps in 2 min, power plan untouched, and where the restore script is.

Step 3 — When the session's work completes

1. Restore settings: powershell -File $env:TEMP\unattended-power-restore.ps1
2. Only if the user asked for shutdown AND every task succeeded:

shutdown /s /t 120 — tell the user shutdown /a cancels it within the 2-minute window.

1. If anything failed or needs user input: do NOT shut down. Restore settings, leave

the PC on, and report where things stopped.

Rules

• NEVER shut down on a partial or failed run — a dark PC hides the failure.
• ALWAYS capture before applying; never overwrite an existing restore script that has

yet to be run (that would erase the true original values).

• Do not close user apps, kill processes, or change the power plan — energy saving here

is display + no-sleep only.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: ridwanahmed06
• Source: ridwanahmed06/claude-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.