v10: self-schedule only when waiting on something concrete; drop auto-heartbeats

[MagMueller]

Stacked on #217 (v9). Reverses the auto-heartbeat default.

The fix

You called it out: re-firing the same prompt every hour is noise, not work. "Send a message" → 3h later "send a message" = dumb. The agent should self-schedule only when there's something specific to come back to.

Changes

• new-topic: --heartbeat default flipped to NONE (was +1h).

  • Opt-in only when the caller has a genuine fixed-cadence polling reason ("scan this inbox every 30 min").
  • Otherwise the agent inside the new topic decides — tg-schedule "+N min" "<concrete check" as a one-shot when needed.

• /goal: removed the auto-queued tg-schedule --repeat in _start_agency_goal_from_command. The autopilot agent decides whether to come back later based on what it actually did.

• System prompt: rewrote the heartbeat bullet.

  Before: "The bot fires a heartbeat into every goal topic every hour..."

  After: "Self-schedule only when you have something concrete to come back to — a reply you're waiting for, a CI run, a launch window, a draft that needs a re-pass. Don't queue recurring heartbeats that fire the same generic prompt over and over — that's noise, not work."

  Daily-summary section reframed as a self-queued one-shot, not a heartbeat side-effect.

What's preserved

tg-schedule --repeat still exists for cases where fixed-cadence polling is the right answer ("scan Slack for new threads every 30 min", "check the deploy every 5 min until green"). We just stopped applying it automatically.

Tests

• 29 pass
• Syntax checks
• On a box: /goal X — verify no heartbeat queued in atq
• new-topic "X" "Y" — verify no heartbeat queued
• new-topic "X" --heartbeat "+30 minutes" "Y" — verify heartbeat queued

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Summary by cubic

Stop auto-heartbeats. New topics and /goal threads no longer schedule periodic pings; the agent now self-schedules one-shots only when there’s something concrete to wait for.

• Refactors

  • new-topic: --heartbeat default is none; opt-in with --heartbeat "+N" when real fixed-cadence polling is needed.
  • /goal: removed auto-queued tg-schedule --repeat; the autopilot agent schedules follow-ups only as needed.
  • Updated system prompt to emphasize self-scheduling on concrete events; reframed daily summary as a one-shot.

• Migration

  • No change needed for most flows. Add --heartbeat "+N" for jobs that truly require polling (e.g., “scan Slack every 30 min”). tg-schedule --repeat remains available.

^{Written for commit e8535cb. Summary will update on new commits. Review in cubic}

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 3 files

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