rpi-cpu-monitor

What This Skill Does

The rpi-cpu-monitor skill is a powerful utility designed for Raspberry Pi users to ensure hardware longevity and stability. By monitoring the CPU thermal state, it prevents overheating-related crashes and performance throttling. The skill provides two distinct operational modes: a zero-overhead crontab method for production-ready, resource-efficient monitoring, and an OpenClaw cron method for tighter integration with AI agent logic during testing phases. It natively handles temperature data collection from system files and triggers alerts directly to your configured communication channels (e.g., Feishu) when user-defined thermal thresholds are breached.

Installation

To install this skill, run the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/archerweiye/rpi-cpu-monitor

For production usage, we highly recommend the crontab approach. You will need to create a bash script that fetches the temperature via vcgencmd or /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp. Once created and granted execution permissions with chmod +x, add the task to your system crontab using crontab -e. For example, use */35 * * * * /path/to/script to check your thermal status every 35 minutes.

Use Cases

• Edge Server Monitoring: Keep track of home-lab or remote edge devices running on Raspberry Pi to ensure they remain within safe operating temperatures.
• Performance Optimization: Identify if CPU throttling is occurring due to high temperatures during heavy AI model inference or data processing tasks.
• Automated Operations: Eliminate manual health checks by automating alerts to instant messaging platforms when thermal limits are exceeded, allowing for proactive maintenance.

Example Prompts

1. "Check the current CPU temperature of my Raspberry Pi and report it back to me."
2. "Set up a monitoring task to alert me on Feishu if the CPU temperature exceeds 75 degrees Celsius."
3. "Is there a way to monitor my RPi temperatures without constantly invoking the LLM?"

Tips & Limitations

• Optimization: For 24/7 monitoring, always prefer the native system crontab over agent-based cron to avoid unnecessary LLM token consumption and latency.
• Thresholds: Raspberry Pis generally start thermal throttling around 80°C. Setting your alert threshold to 70-75°C provides a healthy buffer to take action (like stopping services) before performance degradation begins.
• Compatibility: This skill relies on vcgencmd, which is standard on Raspberry Pi OS. If you are using a different Linux distribution, verify that the thermal system files match the expected paths.