nc://cacheguard

Cacheguard: warns or blocks a big prompt sent after a pause, when the provider's prompt cache may have expired, and shows what the round reused or rebilled. A Nodecode rewrite of AIverflow/hermes-cacheguard by AIverflow.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the cacheguard cell", or run nodecode add nc://cacheguard.

Set it up

No key and no service: the cell reads only what Nodecode already tells it. Its section is optional and everything has a default:

"cacheguard": {
  "mode": "warn",              // off, warn (report afterwards) or block (stop before sending)
  "pause_minutes": 10,         // idle minutes that count as a pause
  "size_k": 20,                // smallest prompt to act on, in thousands of tokens
  "display_on_success": false, // show the line when the cache was kept
  "journal_rows": 10000        // most calls kept in the stats
}

Use it

Providers bill a cache hit far below their input price, and after a pause the provider may have dropped the cache: the next big prompt is then billed at full price, or more where writing a new cache costs extra. cacheguard keeps, per session, when the last provider call ran and how large its prompt was, and wraps the one function that makes a provider call:

• warn (the default): the round runs, and afterwards a notice says cacheguard: cache lost, 48k rebilled, 12m pause, or cacheguard: 41k reused, 12m pause when display_on_success is on. A kept cache is silent otherwise.
• block: on a pause over pause_minutes and a prompt over size_k tokens, the provider is not called at all. The round answers cacheguard: BLOCKED, 12m pause, 48k tokens may be rebilled.; sending the message again goes out, because the pause clock restarted. Starting a new chat is often cheaper still, and the new chat can read the old session back by its id.
• off: it watches nothing.

/cacheguard shows the settings and a table of how often the cache was lost, by how long the pause was, from this image's own journal. /cacheguard set mode block, /cacheguard set pause_minutes 5, /cacheguard reset, /cacheguard help.

The cell never calls a model, never opens a socket and starts no process. It stores counts and minutes, never message text, and a failure in it lets the round run.