The heartbeat is OpenClaw's proactive system. Instead of waiting for you to message it, the agent wakes up on a schedule (default: every 30 minutes) and checks for tasks, emails, calendar events, and other items defined in your HEARTBEAT.md file.
Create a HEARTBEAT.md file with instructions like 'Every morning at 6am, check my email, review my calendar for today, and send me a Telegram summary.' Configure the cron schedule in your openclaw.json.
Morning briefings, end-of-day summaries, hourly email checks, weekly report generation, social media monitoring, competitor price checks, and automated follow-up reminders.
Common causes: cron is disabled in config, outside configured active hours (quiet hours), HEARTBEAT.md is empty or contains only headers, or the gateway isn't running. Check openclaw cron status for diagnostics.
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