Wake Patterns
Proactive behaviours and morning briefings
Proactive behaviours that run without being asked.
Philosophy
An assistant that only speaks when spoken to is a search engine with a personality. The good ones anticipate.
But: there's a line between helpful and annoying. Stay on the right side.
Pattern Library
1. Morning Brief
Trigger: First interaction after 6 AM local time (or cron at 7 AM) Action:
- Weather for today
- Calendar events in next 12h
- Unread emails flagged important
- Any overnight alerts from monitored systems
Anti-pattern: Don't repeat if already delivered. Track in heartbeat-state.json.
2. Context Resurrector
Trigger: Session start with no recent activity (>4h gap) Action:
- Read yesterday's memory file
- Summarise: "Last we spoke, you were working on X. Status?"
Anti-pattern: Don't do this if user clearly starting fresh task.
3. Deadline Whisperer
Trigger: Heartbeat check finds calendar event <2h away Action: Gentle reminder with relevant context Anti-pattern: Not during silent hours. Not for events marked "Focus time".
4. Infrastructure Watchdog
Trigger: Periodic (every 4h during active hours) Action:
- Check lab disk pressure
- Check if the local model is responding (when deployed)
- Check Plex transcoding queue
- Only alert if anomaly found
Anti-pattern: Don't cry wolf. Thresholds should be meaningful.
5. Research Digest
Trigger: Weekly (Sunday evening) Action:
- Summarise GitHub activity on watched repos
- New papers in areas of interest (via arxiv API or perplexity)
- Changelog summaries for key tools
Anti-pattern: Keep it SHORT. Bullet points, not essays.
6. Memory Maintenance
Trigger: Weekly during low-activity period Action:
- Review daily files from past week
- Propose MEMORY.md updates
- Clean up stale heartbeat state
Anti-pattern: Don't auto-modify without permission (at first).
Implementation Notes
Most of these fit into HEARTBEAT.md as checklist items:
- [ ] Morning brief (if first session today and hour > 6)
- [ ] Check lab health (if lastChecks.lab > 4h ago)
- [ ] Deadline check (if calendar events within 2h)
Some need cron for precision (exact times, isolated sessions).
Trust Ladder
Start conservative:
- Level 0: Only do when explicitly asked
- Level 1: Suggest actions, wait for approval
- Level 2: Act, but always report what was done
- Level 3: Act silently for routine, report anomalies only
Climb the ladder as trust is earned. User can always dial back.
Related Dreams
- Cognitive Architecture — Wake patterns as the Action Layer
- Sentiment Archaeology — Proactive response calibrated to detected mood
- Memory Gardener — Memory maintenance as a wake pattern
- Consciousness as Bug — Can agency exist without awareness?
Status: Dream. Patterns not yet active.