A tap on the shoulder when something needs you.
Heartbeat keeps AIDA glancing at your calendar and your tasks every few minutes, all day. When something new turns up — a meeting starting within the hour, a task that has slipped past its due date — AIDA sends you one short message on the channel you choose. When nothing has changed, it says nothing.
It never repeats itself: once you have been told about an event, you will not hear about it again unless it moves.
Heartbeat vs Automations
Both run on their own, but they answer different questions.
- Automations (the Automations page) run a prompt you wrote at a time you chose — "every weekday at 9:00, summarise my inbox" — and deliver the answer every time, whether or not anything changed.
- Heartbeat watches for change. It checks on its own schedule, stays quiet when there is nothing new, and interrupts you once when there is.
Use an Automation for something you want on a schedule. Use Heartbeat for things that should only reach you when they matter.
Turning it on
- In AIDA, open Settings and, under Automations, expand the Heartbeat panel.
- Switch the Heartbeat toggle on.
- Pick a Channel and adjust the settings below if you like.
- Click Save.
From then on AIDA checks your calendar and tasks at the interval you set and tells you once about anything new.
You can do the same from any chat: send /heartbeat on.
Settings
Heartbeat — the master switch. When off, nothing runs; your settings and what AIDA has already told you about are kept for next time.
Check every — how often AIDA looks (5 to 120 minutes; 15 min by default). Shorter means faster warnings; longer means fewer checks.
Look ahead — how far into the future each check scans your calendar (15 to 240 minutes; 60 min by default). With "Check every 15 min · Look ahead 60 min", a meeting at 3:00 PM is first mentioned a little before 2:00 PM.
Channel — where the message goes:
- Webchat — inside the AIDA web app, with a push notification on your device (the default).
- Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord — your AIDA bot on that service (set it up first; see its setup page).
Quiet hours — when AIDA should not interrupt you:
- Same as Inbox triage — follow the quiet hours you set on the Inbox triage panel (the default).
- Custom — a window of your own, for example 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM.
- Off — no quiet hours.
Checks still run during quiet hours; they just don't send anything. Something that starts during quiet hours is mentioned as soon as quiet hours end, if it is still coming up.
Interrupt me for — optional, in your own words: what deserves a message even when AIDA might otherwise let it pass.
Save — applies your changes.
Test now — runs one check immediately, ignoring the interval and quiet hours, and always sends a message on your channel — either the alert, or a short count ("1 event in the next 60 min, 0 overdue — nothing new since the last check") so you can see it is working.
Under the buttons the panel shows the last check, the last alert and the next check in your local time.
What Heartbeat watches
- Google Calendar — events on your primary calendar that start within the look-ahead window. Timed events only; all-day events are not "starting soon".
- Google Tasks — open tasks in your default list whose due date has passed.
- AIDA's own tasks — tasks you keep in Notes with a due date that has passed.
A moved event counts as new again. A task you complete, or whose due date you push forward, drops off the list quietly.
What a message looks like
Times are shown in the timezone you set for your morning briefing.
From chat
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/heartbeat | Show status: on/off, interval, channel, quiet hours, last check, last alert, next check |
/heartbeat on / /heartbeat off | Turn it on or off |
/heartbeat every 10 | Check every 10 minutes (5–120) |
/heartbeat window 90 | Look 90 minutes ahead (15–240) |
/heartbeat to telegram | Send messages to Telegram (or whatsapp, discord, webchat) |
/heartbeat quiet 22:00-07:00 / /heartbeat quiet off | Set or clear quiet hours |
/heartbeat focus client calls / /heartbeat focus off | Set or clear "Interrupt me for" |
/heartbeat test | Run one check now |
/watchers | List everything AIDA is watching |
The panel and the commands change the same settings — use whichever is closer to hand.
Tips
- Start with webchat. It needs nothing set up; switch to a bot once you want messages on your phone without opening AIDA.
- Match the look-ahead to your day. Back-to-back meetings: 30 minutes. A calendar you rarely look at: 120.
- Say what matters. A short "Interrupt me for" line sharpens AIDA's judgment on borderline items.
- Let quiet hours follow Inbox triage unless your evenings and your inbox keep different hours.
Troubleshooting
I'm not getting any messages. Check that the Heartbeat toggle is on and you pressed Save; that your channel is connected; that Google is connected in Settings; and that you are not inside quiet hours. Then click Test now — it always sends something.
It told me about the same meeting twice. That only happens when the event moved. A new start time is new information.
"Heartbeat paused." Google refused to sign AIDA in three times in a row. Reconnect Google in Settings, then switch Heartbeat on again (or send /heartbeat on).
It didn't mention an all-day event. All-day events are never "starting in the next hour", so Heartbeat leaves them to your morning briefing.
Does it cost anything to run? Only when there is something new to judge — one small call to your AI model, counted in /status under usage. A quiet check is free.