feat: /heartbeat — recurring session re-entry prompt fired when idle - #79681
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/heartbeat every <interval> <prompt> gives the current session one recurring instruction. When the session is idle and the interval has elapsed, the prompt is injected as a plain user turn — same conversation, same context, prompt cache and role alternation untouched. - CLI: idle-poll watchdog thread (wake-word watchdog pattern) feeding _pending_input; gateway: single gateway-wide async poller injecting through the adapter FIFO. Busy sessions coalesce their tick to the next idle poll. - Missed ticks coalesce (anchor resets on fire) — a busy hour yields ONE heartbeat turn, never a backlog. Real user messages always win. - 60s interval floor; injected prompt carries a don't-invent-work guard so idle heartbeats don't generate busywork. - State persists in SessionDB.state_meta (heartbeat:<session_id>), survives /resume, migrates across compression session rotations alongside /goal state. - Session-scoped and in-process by design — durable cross-process schedules remain the cron subsystem's job (docs draw the boundary). - Slack stays under the 50-slash cap via /hermes heartbeat; ghost-text suggester now prefers the shortest prefix match so /he still suggests /help. Adapted from the session-heartbeat concept in Prime Intellect's Prime-Agent (/heartbeat).
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૮ >ﻌ< ა ci reviewran on ba2ae96
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This was referenced Aug 6, 2026
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Summary
/heartbeat every <interval> <prompt>gives a session one recurring instruction that re-enters the conversation as a normal user turn whenever the session is idle and the interval has elapsed. Adapted from the session-heartbeat concept in Prime Intellect's Prime-Agent (/heartbeat).P4 of tracker #79686 — closes #62648.
Deltas vs the tracker's proposed shape (for review)
steer/follow-up delivery modes can layer on once P1 establishes that vocabulary — the injection point (adapter FIFO /_pending_input) is mode-agnostic.How it works
_pending_input; gateway: one gateway-wide async poller injects through the adapter FIFO. A busy session coalesces its tick to the next idle poll — heartbeats never interrupt a running turn.SessionDB.state_meta(heartbeat:<session_id>), survives/resume, and migrates across compression session rotations alongside/goalstate.hermes cron. The docs page draws that boundary explicitly (heartbeat = this conversation's context, cron = isolated jobs)./hbalias; Slack routes via/hermes heartbeat(50-slash cap). The ghost-text suggester now prefers the shortest prefix match so/hestill suggests/helprather than/heartbeat.Changes
hermes_cli/heartbeat.py(new): interval parsing (10m,every 2h, …),HeartbeatState/HeartbeatManager, due/coalesce logic, SessionDB persistence, rotation migration.cli.py:_get_heartbeat_manager,_start_heartbeat_watchdog, dispatch.hermes_cli/cli_commands_mixin.py:/heartbeathandler.gateway/run.py/gateway/slash_commands.py: handler for all platforms, watch registry + poller, mid-run dispatch.agent/conversation_compression.py: heartbeat migration at session rotation (next to goal migration).hermes_cli/commands.py: CommandDef (+/hb), Slack via-/hermes routing, shortest-prefix ghost text.heartbeat.md(registered insidebars.ts), slash-command reference (both tables).tests/hermes_cli/test_heartbeat.py: 21 tests.Validation
test_commands.pyincl. Slack/Telegram parity + ghost text,test_goals.py)Infographic