Impulse: The Autonomous Layer

Everything else in the platform acts on a trigger: you write to the master agent, a tick fires a task agent, a file lands in a pipeline queue. Impulse is different in kind, it initiates. It is the component that looks at the whole system and asks what deserves attention now, which is why the docs call it the autonomous layer and why it gets its own switch, its own pause, and its own instructions file.

Off by Default, On by Choice

A fresh install runs perfectly well with Impulse off: agents tick, pipelines process their queues, the master agent answers. Enabling Impulse, default tick of 60 minutes, both configurable, is the moment the system starts acting on its own initiative. The platform treats that as a milestone you choose, not a default you discover. Most owners run the system for a few days first, watch the activity feed, and switch Impulse on once they trust what they see.

What a Tick Does

Each Impulse tick is a tour of the whole install. It curates: agent logs are dense and technical, and Impulse distills them into the readable activity feed the dashboard and sidebar show, which is why a glance at the UI tells you what happened overnight. It watches: failures, stuck work, and anomalies get noticed, and what needs you becomes a flag or a dashboard note. It learns: patterns from successful work are extracted into rewards, the learning layer's raw material, documented in machine learning. It works goals: the goal list you keep in the UI is Impulse's standing agenda, and it moves your goals forward in the increments a tick allows. And it can queue builds: when a goal or an observed need calls for new capability, Impulse can put a task into the coding pipeline the same way you would.

Built-In Courtesy

Two behaviors make Impulse a good housemate. It backs off automatically while you are actively chatting with the master agent, the system's initiative never competes with yours for attention or resources. And it respects every layer of the pause model: its own pause button stops just Impulse, and the global pause stops it along with everything else autonomous. Anything Impulse does runs through the same guardrails as the rest of the platform, outward-facing work still queues for approval where approval is configured, and judgment calls still become flags.

Goals: The Standing Agenda

The Goals tab in the web UI is where you tell the system what matters beyond the day's tasks. Goals are plain statements, grow the newsletter list, keep the test suite green, research competitors monthly, and Impulse reads them every tick as its agenda. Good goals name outcomes rather than steps; Impulse is well equipped to find the steps, and the flags it raises along the way keep you in the loop on direction. Between the goal list and the agent notes it leaves on the dashboard, Impulse functions as a chief of staff who works the priorities and reports back.

What It Costs

Impulse economics are easy to reason about because the dials are explicit. At the default 60-minute tick it thinks at most 24 times a day, and the automatic backoff while you are chatting trims that further. Like every agent, it has its own model choice, and the right pick depends on what you have it doing: an Impulse that mostly curates the feed runs happily on an economical model, while one trusted to queue builds and judge anomalies repays a stronger one. If you want the curation without the initiative, a long tick on a cheap model gives you a tireless log reader for pennies, and you can promote it later as your goals list grows teeth.

Shaping It

Impulse reads its role from memory/core_impulse.md, an instruction file like any other, and per-area guides tell it how to think about each part of the system. Owners shape Impulse the same way they shape any agent: edit the instructions, adjust the tick, pick its model. A longer tick makes it a daily reviewer, a shorter one makes it an active operator; a stronger model makes its judgment sharper where the rewards and build decisions matter. Start with the defaults, read its notes for a week, and tune from what you see.