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A manual Tool instance has its own identity, selected data, seed, allowed operations, status, and expiry. Multiple instances of the same Tool are independent.

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Set the starting lifetime

The interactive setup requests four hours. Without a selected duration, the default is 30 minutes. Read the service’s current allowed lifetime before requesting a longer window. At expiry, compute ends and connections stop working. This is not an automatic pause that promises the same URL can be revived later. Retained content and metadata follow their retention policy.

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Pause and resume

For a current manual instance, read its epoch with tools get, then:
A pause preserves synthetic state but does not extend expiry. Read the current epoch before a deliberate resume:
A paused instance still counts toward its held resource capacity. Expired or destroyed instances cannot be resumed.

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Extend a lifetime

Read tools get and set FD_INSTANCE_ID, FD_EPOCH, and FD_CURRENT_EXPIRY from the response. Set FD_LATER_EXPIRY to a later UTC timestamp including milliseconds, within the allowed lifetime.
Extend applies only to a current active or paused manual instance. It does not resume compute or renew connection credentials. If someone changed the expiry first, refresh instead of overwriting their change.

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End an instance

This ends the synthetic instance, not your application or previous reports. It does not claim to erase retained files.
The web app also shows ended instances and retained activity. Availability of state or files is separate from an instance’s running status.

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Run-owned Tools

Simulation runners allocate and close their own instances. Inspect them through their run and Tool history; do not manually pause, reset, or destroy them while execution is owned by the runner.