Heartbeat

${var} — Area to focus on. If empty, runs all checks.

If ${var} is set, focus checks on that specific area.

Read memory/MEMORY.md and the last 2 days of memory/logs/ for context.

Checks (in priority order)

P0 — Failed & stuck skills (check first)

Read memory/cron-state.json. This file tracks every scheduled skill's state and quality metrics:

{
  "skill-name": {
    "last_dispatch": "2026-04-06T12:00:00Z",
    "last_status": "dispatched|success|failed",
    "last_success": "2026-04-06T12:05:00Z",
    "last_failed": "2026-04-05T12:03:00Z",
    "total_runs": 10,
    "total_successes": 8,
    "total_failures": 2,
    "consecutive_failures": 0,
    "success_rate": 0.80,
    "last_quality_score": 4,
    "last_error": "error signature text"
  }
}

Flag these conditions:

• Failed skills: any entry with last_status: "failed". Report the skill name and when it failed.
• Stuck skills: any entry with last_status: "dispatched" where last_dispatch is >45 minutes ago. The skill was dispatched but never reported back — likely hung or crashed before the state update step ran.
• API degradation: any skill with consecutive_failures >= 3. This likely indicates an external API is down or rate-limiting. Report the skill, failure count, and last_error. If multiple skills share similar error signatures, flag the shared dependency.
• Chronic failures: any skill with success_rate < 0.5 (and total_runs >= 5). The skill is failing more than it succeeds.
• Self-check: if heartbeat's own entry shows last_success is >36 hours ago (or missing), note that heartbeat itself may be unreliable.

P1 — Stalled PRs & urgent issues

• Any open PRs stalled > 24h? (use gh pr list)
• Any GitHub issues labeled urgent? (use gh issue list)

P2 — Flagged memory items

• Anything flagged in memory/MEMORY.md that needs follow-up?

P3 — Missing scheduled skills

Read aeon.yml for enabled skills with schedules. Cross-reference with memory/cron-state.json:

• If an enabled skill has no entry at all in the state file, it has never been dispatched by the scheduler.
• If a skill's last_success is >2x its schedule interval old (e.g., a daily skill hasn't succeeded in >48h), flag it.

Do NOT use gh run list for this — the state file is authoritative.

Dedup & notification

Before sending any notification, grep memory/logs/ for the same item. If it appears in the last 48h of logs, skip it. Never notify about the same item twice.

Batch all findings into a single notification, grouped by priority tier:

🔴 FAILED: skill-a (failed 2h ago), skill-b (stuck 1h ago)
🟡 STALLED: PR #42 open 3 days
🔵 MEMORY: follow-up on X flagged 2 days ago

Output

If nothing needs attention, log "HEARTBEAT_OK" and end your response.

If something needs attention:

1. Send a single concise notification via ./notify (grouped by priority as above)
2. Log the findings and actions taken to memory/logs/${today}.md