4.4 KiB
SKILL: Cron Agent (Temporal Heartbeat)
Overview
The Cron Agent serves as the system's temporal conscience. By hooking into the background heartbeat, it provides the agent with autonomous, time-aware capabilities, allowing it to transition from a purely reactive tool to a proactive executive assistant.
The Temporal Mandate
- Punctuality: The agent must monitor deadlines and alerts, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
- Efficiency: To conserve resources, the neural layer (System 1) should only be invoked if the symbolic layer (System 2) confirms that a temporal threshold has been crossed.
- Multi-Channel Awareness: Alerts should be routed to the most appropriate channel (Emacs or external delivery) based on the task's context.
Symbolic Implementation (The Logic)
The implementation below defines how the system perceives time and filters tasks for neural processing.
Architectural Intent: Heartbeat Perception
This trigger aligns the skill with the system's periodic heartbeat pulse, ensuring consistent temporal checks without excessive overhead.
(defun trigger-skill-cron (context)
(let ((type (getf context :type))
(payload (getf context :payload)))
(and (eq type :EVENT)
(eq (getf payload :sensor) :heartbeat))))Architectural Intent: Temporal Parsing
This utility function translates human-readable Org-mode timestamps into a machine-comparable format, bridging the gap between notes and logic.
(defun parse-org-timestamp (ts-str)
"Extract year, month, and day from an Org timestamp (e.g. <2026-03-24 Tue>)
and return its universal-time representation."
(let ((match (nth-value 1 (cl-ppcre:scan-to-strings "<(\\d{4})-(\\d{2})-(\\d{2}).*>" ts-str))))
(if match
(encode-universal-time 0 0 0
(parse-integer (aref match 2))
(parse-integer (aref match 1))
(parse-integer (aref match 0)))
nil)))Architectural Intent: Proactive Deadline Audit
This function acts as the "System 2 Filter." It audits all active TODOs, compares them against the current time, and only wakes up the neural layer if it identifies overdue items that require an alert.
(defun neuro-skill-cron (context)
"Checks for deadlines and only wakes the LLM if action is needed."
(let* ((all-tasks (org-agent:context-query-store :todo-state "TODO" :type :HEADLINE))
(now (get-universal-time))
(overdue-tasks nil))
(dolist (task all-tasks)
(let* ((attrs (org-agent:org-object-attributes task))
(deadline-str (getf attrs :DEADLINE))
(title (getf attrs :TITLE)))
(when deadline-str
(let ((deadline-time (parse-org-timestamp deadline-str)))
;; Only consider it overdue if the deadline has actually passed
(when (and deadline-time (<= deadline-time now))
(push (format nil "[~a] Was due - ~a" title deadline-str) overdue-tasks))))))
(if overdue-tasks
(let* ((all-delivery (mapcar (lambda (task)
(getf (org-agent:org-object-attributes task) :DELIVERY))
all-tasks))
;; Check if any overdue task specifically requested external delivery
(target (if (cl:some (lambda (d) (not (null d))) all-delivery) :delivery :emacs)))
(format nil "
You are the user's Executive Assistant.
The heartbeat monitor just woke you up.
The following tasks are officially OVERDUE:
~a
Draft a very short, polite alert message to the user warning them about these deadlines.
Return a Lisp plist - (:target ~a :action :message :text \"your alert\")
If target is :delivery, make the message extra concise for a phone notification.
" overdue-tasks (if (eq target :delivery) ":delivery" ":emacs")))
nil)))Architectural Intent: Symbolic Verification
A standard pass-through to ensure the proposed alert reaches its intended actuator.
(defun verify-skill-cron (proposed-action context)
proposed-action)Registration
(defskill :skill-cron
:priority 60
:trigger #'trigger-skill-cron
:neuro #'neuro-skill-cron
:symbolic #'verify-skill-cron)