Day 6: Make Your Assistant Work Proactively

"An assistant you have to ask is just a tool. An assistant that proactively reaches out to you—that's a real assistant. After today, you'll never need to 'remember to check emails' again—because someone's remembering for you."

Chapter Overview

Today you'll upgrade your assistant from "passive tool" to "proactive butler":

• Understand the Heartbeat mechanism—your assistant's "biological clock"
• Configure Cron scheduled tasks—automation precise to the minute
• Build the Memory system—let your assistant remember everything
• Implement proactive work—email checking, schedule reminders, data monitoring all automated

From "You Ask, It Answers" to "It Proactively Reaches Out"

Over the past five days, your assistant has become quite capable. It has a soul, knows you, can read emails, manage calendar, search the web, browse pages. But it has one fatal problem—

If you don't reach out, it does nothing.

50 emails piled up and it doesn't check. A calendar meeting about to start and it doesn't remind you. Website's down and it doesn't tell you. It just sits there quietly, waiting for you to speak.

It's like hiring an all-capable butler, but they just stand at the door every day waiting for your commands—if you don't speak, they don't move. That's not a butler, that's a statue.

Today we solve this problem.

Heartbeat Mechanism

Heartbeat is one of OpenClaw's core mechanisms—it lets your assistant periodically "wake up" to proactively check if there's anything that needs handling.

How It Works

OpenClaw sends a heartbeat signal to your assistant at set intervals (default 30 minutes). When the assistant receives the signal, it:

1. Reads the task list in HEARTBEAT.md
2. Checks each item
3. Sends a message if there's something you need to know about
4. If nothing notable, quietly responds with HEARTBEAT_OK

Configure Heartbeat

Here's a recommended HEARTBEAT.md template:

# Heartbeat Tasks

## Check Every Time
- Check Gmail for important emails
- Check calendar for meetings within 2 hours that need reminders

## Check 2-3 Times Daily
- Check if websites are accessible
- Check GSC for unusual data fluctuations

## Don't Need to Proactively Do
- Weather queries (wait until I ask)
- Social media (unless I'm @mentioned)

Heartbeat Interval

openclaw configure --section gateway

Common settings:

• 15m — Quite frequent, good for workday daytime
• 30m — Default, balance of efficiency and cost
• 1h — More economical, good for off-hours

Tip: A 30-minute interval means your assistant spends about 10 seconds each time quickly scanning check items. If everything's normal it goes back to sleep, if there's something important it notifies you. About 3-5 proactive messages per day is typical—just enough, not annoying.

Scheduled Tasks (Cron)

Heartbeat is good for "check every so often" tasks. But some things need precise timing, like:

• Send morning briefing at 8:00 AM every day
• Send weekly report Monday morning at 9:00 AM
• Check server bills on the 1st of every month

That's when you use Cron scheduled tasks.

Create Cron Tasks

openclaw cron add --name "Morning Briefing" --cron "0 8 * * *" \
  --system-event "Generate today's briefing: check email, calendar, website data, compile into one message and send to me"

Cron expressions follow the standard format:

min hour day month weekday
0   8    *   *     *       → Every day at 8:00
0   9    *   *     1       → Every Monday at 9:00
0   10   1   *     *       → 1st of every month at 10:00
*/30 9-18 * * 1-5          → Weekdays 9:00-18:00 every 30 minutes

Practical Cron Task Examples

Morning Briefing (Daily at 8:00):

"Morning briefing: 1) Check unread emails and summarize important ones 2) Today's calendar schedule 3) Any website data anomalies. Compile and send to me."

Weekly Report (Every Monday at 9:00):

"Generate last week's work report: summarize important events, completed tasks, website data changes, important emails received."

Health Reminder (Weekdays every 2 hours):

"Gentle reminder: Get up and move around, drink some water. If you've been working for over 2 hours straight, strongly recommend a 10-minute break."

Heartbeat vs Cron: When to Use What?

Simple rule: Check every so often = Heartbeat. Do at specific time = Cron.

Memory System

Once your assistant works proactively, it generates lots of information daily—what it checked, what it found, what you asked it to do. Without memory, every time it wakes up it's completely fresh, remembering nothing.

OpenClaw's memory system has three layers:

1. Daily Notes: memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md

The assistant automatically creates a note file each day, recording what happened:

# 2025-07-20

## Morning
- Morning briefing sent: 3 important emails, 2 meetings
- Owner asked me to check site search data
- Found /converter page ranking dropped from #8 to #12, notified

## Afternoon
- Helped owner write an API route
- Reminded about 14:00 meeting
- Owner said weekly report format should include "what I learned this week"

## Evening
- 21:00 routine check, all normal
- Owner still working at 23:30, reminded to rest

2. Long-term Memory: MEMORY.md

Every few days, the assistant reviews recent daily notes and distills what's worth keeping long-term into MEMORY.md:

# Long-term Memory

## Owner's Work Habits
- Prefers deep work in afternoon, handles misc in morning
- Doesn't like being interrupted while coding, unless urgent email
- Weekly report format should include "what I learned this week" (confirmed July 20)

## Project Status
- Site A — Focus on /generator page SEO
- Site B — /converter page ranking dropped, needs monitoring

## Lessons Learned
- GSC data has 2-3 day delay, don't compare yesterday and today's data
- Owner doesn't like long messages, use bold + lists for important info

3. Soul Memory: SOUL.md + USER.md

These two files are also part of memory—they're "core memories" that don't change with dates, defining who the assistant is and who the owner is.

Three layers of memory working together:

• SOUL.md + USER.md = Who I am, who you are (unchanging)
• MEMORY.md = Everything I know about you (slowly accumulating)
• memory/date.md = What happened today (updated daily)

Result: Your assistant gets to know you better and better.

First week, it only knows basic info you wrote in USER.md. After a month, it knows your work habits, preferences, common phrases, current projects, what data you track. After three months—it might understand your work patterns better than you do.

Practical Example: 5 Things Your Assistant Can Do Automatically Every Day

Here's what "proactive work" really looks like in practice:

1. Morning Briefing (Daily at 8:00, Cron) Automatically check Gmail + calendar + website data, compile into one message. You see today's full picture the moment you check your phone—no need to open any apps.

2. Meeting Reminders (Every heartbeat check) Check calendar every 30 minutes. If there's a meeting within 2 hours, remind in advance, with materials that might be needed (inferred from email and memory).

3. Email Monitoring (Every heartbeat check) Important emails get immediate notification, regular emails batch into the briefing. Importance is judged based on sender, keywords, and historical patterns.

4. Data Anomaly Alerts (2-3 heartbeat checks daily) Scan analytics data for your websites. Alert on significant traffic fluctuation (plus or minus 20%). This kind of early warning lets you respond to issues before they become crises.

5. Evening Review (Daily at 21:00, Cron) Record today's important events to daily notes, update MEMORY.md. This way tomorrow's assistant is still the one that knows you, not starting from zero.

The Art of Balance: Proactive But Not Annoying

Between "proactive work" and "crazy spamming" there's a fine line.

Principle 1: Important things immediately, unimportant things batched

• Urgent email = Notify immediately
• Regular email = Batch into briefing
• Nice weather = No need to proactively mention

Principle 2: Respect quiet hours Late night (23:00-08:00) no messages unless urgent. Reduce interruption frequency on weekends. If you explicitly say "don't disturb me," it stays quiet.

Principle 3: Decreasing frequency At first you might think "wow, it's so proactive and useful." But after a week it becomes "why is it messaging again." So:

• First week: Can be frequent, let you experience its capabilities
• After: Gradually adjust to a comfortable frequency
• Rule of thumb: 3-5 proactive messages per day is most people's comfort zone

Principle 4: Configurable Write all proactive behaviors in HEARTBEAT.md and Cron, you can adjust anytime. Too frequent? Change the interval. Don't need a certain check? Delete it.

Key Takeaways

• Heartbeat = Biological clock: Automatically wakes every 30 minutes, checks email/calendar/notifications
• Cron = Precise alarm: Precise to the minute, supports one-time and recurring tasks
• Memory system: Daily notes (logs) + MEMORY.md (long-term memory), knows you better over time
• Heartbeat vs Cron: Batch checks use heartbeat, precise timing use Cron
• Proactive work is the real value of an AI assistant

Today's Achievement

Today was a transformative day:

• Configured heartbeat mechanism — Assistant auto-checks regularly
• Set up Cron scheduled tasks — Morning briefing, weekly report, reminders
• Understood the three-layer memory system — Assistant knows you better over time
• Learned to balance proactiveness — Proactive but not annoying

From today, your assistant is a "personal assistant" in the true sense. It's online 24 hours, proactively watching your emails, calendar, data—notifying you when something happens, staying quiet when nothing does.

You can go focus on your work now. Those trivial, repetitive, "I always forget to check" things—someone's watching them for you.

Preview: Day 7 — Advanced Techniques

Final day! We'll discuss advanced operations: developing your own Skills, multi-device coordination, security best practices, community resources. And—where is all this heading?

Next: Day 7: Advanced Techniques