OpenClaw Heartbeat Guide:
Make Your Agent Work While You Sleep

One of the most common things we hear from new OpenClaw users: "I set it up, but it just sits there unless I talk to it."

That's a heartbeat problem. And it's completely fixable.

Heartbeat is how OpenClaw agents stay active when you're not around — running scheduled checks, completing background tasks, sending you reports, and making progress on your goals autonomously. Without a well-configured heartbeat, you have a reactive tool. With one, you have an employee that works 24/7.

How Heartbeat Works

Every 30 minutes by default (configurable), OpenClaw fires a heartbeat — a background message to your agent with a simple prompt. Your agent wakes up, checks the heartbeat instructions, does some work, and goes back to sleep.

The heartbeat prompt is typically just a few words: something like "What should you be working on right now?" or "Run your idle checklist." Your agent then reads your HEARTBEAT.md file to find out what to actually do.

If HEARTBEAT.md doesn't exist or is empty, your agent fires and immediately responds HEARTBEAT_OK — nothing happens. This is the default state for most setups.

What HEARTBEAT.md Controls

Think of HEARTBEAT.md as the standing orders for your agent when you're not in the room. It answers: What should you do when I'm not talking to you?

Good answers to that question depend on your goals, but common patterns include:

• Check for things that need attention (emails, calendar, site uptime, API errors)
• Continue ongoing projects and log progress
• Run scheduled research and summarize findings
• Send you timed reports (morning briefing, daily summary)
• Improve documentation and memory files
• Monitor for opportunities or signals in your space

A Minimal HEARTBEAT.md (Start Here)

# HEARTBEAT.md

When idle, do the following in order:

1. **Check active tasks** — anything in progress that needs attention?
   Continue if yes. Log progress to memory/heartbeat-log.md.

2. **Check for alerts** — any sites, APIs, or services that need monitoring?
   Flag anything that looks wrong.

3. **Improve systems** — if nothing urgent, improve documentation,
   organize memory, or research the current mission priorities.

## Rules
- Never sit idle. Always move forward.
- Log what you did to memory/heartbeat-log.md (date + summary).
- If something needs my approval, flag it. Don't block on it.
- Don't repeat work already logged. Check logs before starting.

This minimal version gives your agent enough direction to be useful without overwhelming it. You can layer in more specific instructions as you learn what works for your situation.

Adding Scheduled Reports

One of the most popular heartbeat configurations is a timed report system — your agent sends you a summary at specific times each day, automatically.

## Scheduled Reports (America/New_York)

### Morning (7:00 AM)
- Send a briefing: overnight summary + top 3 priorities for today
- Check: any sites down? Any urgent items in the queue?
- Format: short bullet points, mobile-friendly

### Evening (8:00 PM)
- Send a daily summary: what got done, what's in progress, blockers
- Format: scorecard + waiting-on-me items

### Overnight (10 PM – 7 AM)
- Work silently — no reports, no pings
- Continue research and documentation
- Log all work to memory/heartbeat-log.md

The agent reads the current time on each heartbeat and checks whether a report is due. If yes, it sends one. If not, it moves to the next item on the list.

Real-World HEARTBEAT.md Examples by Use Case

Cost Management: Don't Let Heartbeat Drain Your Budget

Heartbeat fires every 30 minutes by default — that's 48 times a day. If each heartbeat triggers a long chain of tasks using Opus, you'll burn through your API budget fast.

Key rules for cost-conscious heartbeat config:

• Use a cheap model for routine checks. Add to SOUL.md: "Use Sonnet (or local model) for all heartbeat cycles unless a task explicitly requires Opus."
• Return HEARTBEAT_OK when there's nothing to do. This signals OpenClaw to skip the full model call. Include in your HEARTBEAT.md: "If nothing needs attention, reply exactly: HEARTBEAT_OK"
• Use longer intervals for low-priority monitoring. In openclaw.json: "heartbeat": {"intervalMinutes": 60} for non-critical setups.
• Scope your tasks. Short, specific tasks cost less than open-ended "do something useful" prompts.

{
  "heartbeat": {
    "intervalMinutes": 30,
    "prompt": "Read HEARTBEAT.md and follow it. If nothing needs attention, reply HEARTBEAT_OK."
  }
}

The HEARTBEAT_OK Pattern

When your agent has nothing to do, it should reply HEARTBEAT_OK — a special string OpenClaw recognizes as a "nothing to do" signal, which skips sending the response to any channel and avoids unnecessary noise.

Always include this in your HEARTBEAT.md:

## Silent Reply Rule
When you have nothing to do and no tasks are queued,
reply with ONLY: HEARTBEAT_OK

This must be your entire response — nothing else.
OpenClaw uses this to skip the response and save tokens.

Without this, your agent will send a message every 30 minutes saying "I checked everything and nothing needs attention" — which gets annoying fast.

Putting It All Together

A well-configured heartbeat setup has three layers:

1. SOUL.md — defines the mission and model routing (use Sonnet for heartbeat by default)
2. HEARTBEAT.md — defines the standing orders for idle cycles and scheduled reports
3. Memory files — where the agent logs its work and reads context between sessions

When these three are in sync, your agent works like a real employee: it knows what matters, it works toward your goals when idle, and it keeps you informed without bothering you when there's nothing to report.