Heartbeats
Give an agent a pulse — it checks in on a schedule and only speaks up when something needs you.
A heartbeat gives one agent a rhythm. On a schedule, it wakes up inside its own ongoing conversation, reviews its context and anything it's watching, and decides whether to act or stay quiet. Because it beats in the same conversation each time — not a fresh task — the agent keeps its history and picks up where it left off.
Setting one up
Each agent can have one heartbeat. You configure:
- Interval — how often it beats, in minutes (anywhere from 1 minute to 24 hours; the default is every 30 minutes).
- Active hours — an optional window like 09:00–17:00 in a timezone you choose. Outside the window, beats wait for the next opening. Overnight ranges (e.g. 22:00–06:00) work too.
- Prompt — what the agent should check each beat. The default asks it to review pending items and monitored systems, and report only if something needs attention.
- On/off — pause or resume any time without losing the setup.
Staying quiet by design
The point of a heartbeat is signal, not noise. When nothing needs you, the agent replies with a short acknowledgement (the default is HEARTBEAT_OK), and that reply is suppressed — you don't get pinged. Only a real finding, written as a normal message, surfaces to you. The platform tracks how many quiet beats have passed in a row and whether the last beat was an all-clear or an alert.
If the agent already asked you something and is still waiting on your answer, it pauses the clock instead of re-asking every beat.
Heartbeats vs. recurring tasks
Both run on a schedule, but they're built for different jobs. A recurring task spins up a fresh, isolated task each time — good for repeated deliverables. A heartbeat lives inside one continuing conversation, so the agent carries context forward and only interrupts you when it matters.
Heartbeats are available on Pro and higher plans.
Where it fits
- Recurring tasks — scheduled work that produces a fresh task each run.
- Automation — the full picture of scheduled and self-directed work.
- Hives — the agents a heartbeat can run on.
- Memory — what an agent carries between beats.