Free My CPU

Core Rule

Prefer a read-only audit before changing anything. Separate CPU saturation from I/O wait, memory pressure, blocked tasks, noisy dashboards, and runaway containers. Classify findings by safety and impact before recommending restarts, rate limits, query changes, or container resource caps. Never kill processes, restart services, edit crontab/systemd timers, change Docker Compose limits, or throttle production workloads unless the user explicitly accepts the exact target and impact.

Quick Audit

Detect the platform and pressure first:

uname -a
uptime
nproc
free -h
cat /proc/pressure/cpu 2>/dev/null || true
cat /proc/pressure/io 2>/dev/null || true