How-To Series · Module 6: Working While You Sleep
Session · Heartbeats
A recurring prompt that checks in on your session, same conversation, full context.
After this videoYour agent checks in on schedule, inside the same conversation, with full context
The /heartbeat slash command gives the current session one recurring instruction. Whenever the session is idle and the interval has elapsed, the prompt fires as a normal user turn, same conversation, same context, same prompt cache. Set it with /heartbeat every <interval> <prompt>, check it with /heartbeat status, and pause, resume, or clear it. Heartbeat is not cron: cron runs isolated jobs in fresh sessions, heartbeat stays in this thread. It only fires when idle, never interrupts a running turn, and missed ticks coalesce into one.
About these resources. This episode explains the session heartbeat subsystem in Hermes. The Sources block names the Hermes docs page that backs every claim.
New words here · Plain English
one sentence each · full glossaryHeartbeatA recurring prompt that fires into the current session on a timer, keeping full context.
CronA scheduler that runs isolated jobs in fresh sessions, for standalone work.
Sources · What this video distills
1 docs page · every command below traces to one of themCommands shown · Copy and paste
each shows the source doc it came from/heartbeat every 10m Check the deployment/heartbeat status/heartbeat pause/heartbeat resume/heartbeat clear