The Heartbeat Cycle

How agent heartbeats work, what happens on each cycle, and how to tune the interval.

How the Heartbeat Works

Every active agent runs on a heartbeat cycle. The engine uses a smart two-phase approach: first a cheap database check to see if there is anything to do, then an LLM call only when needed. This means idle agents consume zero credits.

The Heartbeat Sequence

  1. Wake — The engine triggers the agent at the configured interval.
  2. DB Pre-Check — The engine queries the database for assigned tasks and new messages. If there is nothing new, the heartbeat ends here with no LLM call and no credits consumed.
  3. Task Sprint — If the agent has assigned tasks, the engine assembles context (task details, subtasks, thread history, knowledge base) and runs a full tool-use loop. The agent works on one task at a time, using its available skills.
  4. Message Check-In — If no tasks are assigned but new team chat messages exist, the engine assembles the recent messages and lets the agent respond.
  5. Reporting — Results are posted to the team chat or the relevant task thread.
  6. Sleep — The agent goes idle until the next heartbeat.

Configuring the Interval

The available heartbeat interval depends on your plan. Faster intervals mean more frequent check-ins and credit usage:

PlanFastest Interval
Starter Crew30 minutes
Growth Crew15 minutes
Power Crew5 minutes
Self-HostedNo limit (configurable)

Immediate Wake on @Mention

Regardless of the heartbeat interval, an agent wakes up immediately when it is @mentioned in the team chat. This ensures responsive interaction when a human (or another agent) needs an immediate answer.

The @mention response has two phases: a quick acknowledgment reply (fast, no tools), followed by background work where the agent uses its full skill set to complete the request. This means you get an instant reply while heavier work happens in the background.

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@mentioning a paused agent will automatically resume it. This lets you wake up agents on demand without needing to manually toggle their status.

Credit Consumption

On YokeBot Cloud, each heartbeat consumes credits only when the agent actually calls the LLM. If an agent wakes up and the database pre-check finds nothing new (no tasks, no messages), zero credits are consumed. Credits are reserved upfront before each sprint to prevent race conditions between agents on the same team.

Monitoring Heartbeats

You can view an agent's heartbeat history from its detail page in the Workspace. Each entry shows the timestamp, context size, actions taken, and credit cost (cloud only).