What is Heartbeat?
Heartbeat turns your agent from a passive chatbot into an autonomous assistant. Instead of waiting for someone to send a message, your agent wakes up on a schedule, executes a prompt, uses its connected tools, and can notify users — all without human interaction.
Heartbeat vs Chat: Chat is reactive — users ask, the agent responds. Heartbeat is proactive — the agent runs on its own, checks things, takes actions, and reports back.
How to Enable
- Go to your agent’s Settings page
- Scroll to Features & Options
- Toggle Heartbeat on
Heartbeat is available on Starter plans and above. Free and Hobby plans will see an “Upgrade” badge on the toggle.
Creating a Heartbeat
Navigate to the Heartbeat tab on your agent’s page and click Create Heartbeat.
Configuration Options
| Setting | Description |
|---|
| Prompt | The instruction your agent executes each time it runs (e.g., “Check for new support tickets and summarize them”) |
| Interval | How often the agent runs (minimum depends on your plan) |
| Active Hours | Start and end time to restrict when the agent runs (e.g., 09:00–17:00) |
| Active Days | Which days of the week the agent should run (e.g., Monday–Friday) |
| Timezone | Timezone for active hours and days |
| Credit Budget | Maximum credits this heartbeat can consume per billing period (optional) |
Plan Limits
| Plan | Max Heartbeats per Agent | Minimum Interval |
|---|
| Starter | 3 | 15 minutes |
| Pro | 10 | 5 minutes |
| Prime | 20 | 5 minutes |
Execution & Notifications
When a heartbeat fires, the agent:
- Receives the configured prompt
- Uses any connected tools (CRM, email, calendar, etc.) to gather information or take actions
- Can send notifications to users via the notify_user capability
- Logs the execution result (success, error, or skipped)
Each heartbeat gets a fresh conversation thread daily, so the agent starts with clean context each day while retaining long-term knowledge through its memory.
Scheduled Tasks
Agents with heartbeat enabled can also create their own recurring tasks. During a heartbeat execution, the agent may decide to schedule follow-up actions using the schedule_task capability — for example, “remind the user about their appointment tomorrow at 9 AM.”
Scheduled tasks have their own limits per plan and per subscriber.
Execution Logs & Stats
The Heartbeat tab provides:
- Execution logs — Every run with status (success/error/skipped), duration, tokens used, and credits charged
- Activity chart — Daily visualization of execution volume
- Stats breakdown — Success rate, total executions, active heartbeats, and per-type breakdowns
- Filtering — Filter logs by status, heartbeat, or date range
Safety Features
Heartbeats include built-in safety controls:
- Circuit breaker — If a heartbeat fails 5 consecutive times (configurable), it automatically pauses to prevent runaway errors
- Credit budget — Set a maximum credit spend per billing period. The heartbeat pauses when the budget is exhausted and resets monthly
- Plan-tier caps — Maximum heartbeats per agent and minimum intervals are enforced per plan
- Active hours — Restrict execution to business hours to avoid off-hours actions
Best Practices
- Enable for agents that monitor, report, or take recurring actions (daily summaries, ticket checks, status updates)
- Set a credit budget to prevent unexpected costs
- Use active hours to avoid running during off-hours
- Review execution logs regularly, especially after first enabling
- Start with longer intervals and decrease as you gain confidence
- Connect the tools your agent needs before creating heartbeats
Next Steps
