OpenClaw Heartbeats

What Are Heartbeats?

Heartbeats are periodic check-ins where your OpenClaw agent wakes up and does useful background work — even when you haven't asked it anything.

How They Work

At configured intervals, OpenClaw sends a heartbeat prompt to your agent. The agent reads HEARTBEAT.md and decides what to do:

• Something needs attention? → Send you a message
• Nothing new? → Reply HEARTBEAT_OK and go back to sleep

Configuring HEARTBEAT.md

# HEARTBEAT.md

## Checks (rotate through these)
- [ ] Check email for urgent messages
- [ ] Review calendar for upcoming events (next 24h)
- [ ] Check website uptime for copypastelearn.com
- [ ] Weather forecast if rain expected

## Rules
- Only alert for genuinely important things
- Quiet hours: 23:00 - 08:00 (don't disturb)
- If nothing important, reply HEARTBEAT_OK

Heartbeats vs Cron

OpenClaw also supports cron jobs. When to use each:

Rule of thumb: Use heartbeats for batched periodic checks, cron for precise schedules.

Tracking State

Use memory/heartbeat-state.json to avoid redundant checks:

{
  "lastChecks": {
    "email": 1703275200,
    "calendar": 1703260800,
    "weather": null
  }
}

The agent checks timestamps and skips recently-completed tasks.

Practical Examples

Email Monitor

## Email Check
- Look for unread emails from VIP senders
- Summarize anything marked urgent
- Skip newsletters and marketing

Calendar Alert

## Calendar
- Alert 2 hours before any meeting
- Include video call links if available
- Mention if preparation is needed

Infrastructure Monitor

## Infra
- Ping copypastelearn.com
- Check SSL certificate expiry
- Alert if any service is down

Best Practices

1. Keep HEARTBEAT.md small — it's read every interval, burning tokens
2. Rotate checks — don't run everything every heartbeat
3. Respect quiet hours — nobody wants 3 AM alerts
4. Track state — avoid redundant API calls
5. Be selective — only alert on genuinely important things

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Ready to go deeper? Check out our hands-on course: OpenClaw Agent — practical exercises you can follow along on your own machine.

Related

For a production-focused walkthrough, see Luca Berton's guide on agentic Ansible automation with OpenClaw.