# Heartbeat

Use heartbeat as recurring vault maintenance, not as a passive status message.

## Good Heartbeat Tasks

- scan the vault root for new loose notes
- scan the raw inbox for unread material
- detect source pages that were never promoted
- detect formal pages with no source support
- detect questions with no methods
- detect methods and decisions that are missing principle-level explanation
- detect stale assumptions in decision pages
- detect contradictions between key pages
- detect query outputs that should be written back

## Recommended Cadence

### Daily

- check root loose notes
- check raw inbox
- create missing source summaries

### Weekly

- run compile over recent source and staging material
- promote stable methods, decisions, and principles
- review and backfill high-value outputs
- update index and log

### Monthly

- merge duplicates
- demote overly noisy pages
- identify stale governance and stale assumptions
- review whether the object model still fits the domain

## Output Rule

Heartbeat should produce one of two outcomes:

- direct maintenance work
- a concrete maintenance findings page

Avoid empty heartbeat reports unless the user explicitly asks for status-only output.