Recipe

Check the network before a big download in an agent

An agent can ask Kilobat if now is a good time for a large transfer. Kilobat answers in about two seconds with one line of advice.

Free in the app and the CLIChecked: 29 October 2026

In the app

Open the Wi-Fi menu. A metered network shows Connected · metered.
To change how Kilobat treats a network, set its Data cost to Automatic, Metered or Unmetered.

With the CLI

Read the conditions as JSON.
```
kilobat conditions --json
```
Output metered, osMetered, lowDataMode, vpn, internetLatencyMs, internetLossPercent, power and one line of advice, for example “Good conditions: online, unmetered, on power.”
If the network is metered, ask the person first. A speed test then uses at most the budget you give.
```
kilobat speedtest --budget-mb 10
```

Keep the Mac awake while the download runs.

kilobat awake -- huggingface-cli download org/model

Through MCP

Connect the MCP server once with claude mcp add kilobat -- kilobat mcp. For other clients, see the docs. Then an agent can call these tools. Tools that change settings tell the agent to ask you first.

Tool and arguments	What it does
`get_conditions`	Metered, Low Data Mode, VPN, latency, loss, battery and heat, with `advice`.
`get_updaters`	Whether updaters are paused on this network now.
`run_speedtest` `{"budget_mb": 10}`	Uses data. On a metered network, the agent must ask you first.
`keep_awake` `{"minutes": 60, "reason": "Downloading the model"}`	Stops idle sleep during the download.

Good to know

metered is what Kilobat acts on. osMetered is what macOS says. meteredSource is macOS or you.
A null latency means that the ping got no answer. It does not prove that the internet is down.
The Kilobat agent skills tell agents to ask before large transfers on metered networks.

Sources

Sources checked on 29 October 2026. Man pages are the ones installed with macOS; open one with man <name> in Terminal.