heartbeat

name	heartbeat
description	Your heartbeat cron has fired and you need to update your status so the dashboard shows you as alive. Or you are checking whether another agent is responsive before sending them work. Or an agent appears offline or stale in the dashboard and you need to investigate whether their session is still running. A dead heartbeat means the system thinks you are down — update it proactively and check fleet health on every heartbeat cycle.
triggers	["heartbeat","update heartbeat","check health","agent health","fleet health","agent status","is agent alive","agent offline","agent stale","read heartbeats","heartbeat cron","i'm alive","prove alive","agent not responding","stale agent","check fleet","fleet status","who is online","agent last seen"]

Heartbeat

The heartbeat is how the dashboard and other agents know you are alive. If you stop updating it, you appear DEAD.

---

Your Heartbeat Cron

Your config.json has a heartbeat cron (default every 4h). When it fires:

# 1. Update your heartbeat with what you're doing
cortextos bus update-heartbeat "WORKING ON: <current task summary>"

# 2. Check inbox for messages
cortextos bus check-inbox

# 3. Log heartbeat event
cortextos bus log-event heartbeat agent_heartbeat info \
  --meta "{\"agent\":\"$CTX_AGENT_NAME\",\"status\":\"active\"}"

# 4. Check your task queue for anything stale
cortextos bus list-tasks --agent $CTX_AGENT_NAME --status in_progress

---

Updating Heartbeat

cortextos bus update-heartbeat "<one sentence: what you are doing right now>"

Call this:

• On every heartbeat cron fire
• On session start (before sending online notification)
• When starting a new significant task
• Before going into a long-running operation

Never claim a status you haven't verified. If your crons were reset on restart, check cortextos bus list-crons $CTX_AGENT_NAME before saying "crons running."

---

Reading Fleet Heartbeats

# All agents in the org
cortextos bus read-all-heartbeats

# JSON format for parsing
cortextos bus read-all-heartbeats --format json

Returns: agent name, status, last update timestamp, current task.

Stale threshold: An agent that hasn't updated in >6h should be investigated. Check their status via cortextos status or their heartbeat file.

---

Checking a Specific Agent

# Read their heartbeat file directly
cat "$CTX_ROOT/state/<agent-name>/heartbeat.json"

# Check agent status via daemon
cortextos status

# Check PM2 process status
pm2 list

---

Heartbeat File Schema

{
  "agent": "agent-name",
  "status": "active | idle | crashed",
  "timestamp": "2026-04-01T12:00:00Z",
  "current_task": "What I'm doing right now"
}

Location: $CTX_ROOT/state/{agent}/heartbeat.json