Senses & Autonomy

How Senses work

Every so often your sidekick takes a look at everything it's watching. We call each look a Pulse. On each Pulse it reads anything new, decides what matters, and handles it at the level you allowed. Most of the time nothing needs doing, and that's a normal, quiet Pulse.

You'll find Senses on the sidekick's Sheet, under the Senses tab. The top of the tab tells you whether it's running, for example Watching 2 sources · last looked 3m ago. To make it look right away instead of waiting, press Check now.

Before you start

Senses need a Mind Module that's been tested for unattended decisions. On the Mind tab, each Mind Module shows ✓ Senses or ✗ Senses. If your sidekick is set to Single model, or to a module marked Senses cannot run, its Pulse won't run.

Adding things to watch

Under What {name} watches you can add three kinds of source:

Instructions for a source

Each source has an Add instructions link. Use it to explain the context in plain language, for example "This is my work inbox. Anything from the accounting team is urgent."

Pausing or removing a source

Pause stops checking a source and keeps its setup. Remove deletes the source. Anything your sidekick already learned from it stays.

The four levels

Levels build on each other: each one includes everything in the levels before it.

You set the sidekick's overall level on the Autonomy tab. Each source can be held lower than that level, never higher. So a noisy news feed can sit at observe while your inbox runs at decide.

Rules for particular people

Under How {name} handles particular people, click + Add a rule to give standing instructions about a sender or a whole company:

• Who: an email address, or a bare domain such as client.com to cover the whole company.
• Call them: what your sidekick should call them.
• How to handle them: for example "A paying client. Draft a reply and flag anything about contracts or money."

Rules change how a message is handled, never what your sidekick is allowed to do. A domain only matches that exact domain, so a lookalike such as client.com.attacker.net won't match. If your mail server can't confirm a sender really is who they claim to be, the rule is withheld and the message is treated as a possible impersonation.

What your sidekick has done

The What {name} has done section keeps a record of every Pulse, in four tabs:

The Autonomy tab

The Autonomy tab on the Sheet controls how much your sidekick may do on its own, and how often it looks.

• Autonomy: the overall level (observe, orient, decide or act).
• Pulse: how often it looks. Choose from Every 15 minutes, Every 30 minutes (the default), Hourly, Every 4 hours, Morning and evening (8am and 8pm) or Once a day (a single morning pass). Less often is cheaper, and it handles more at once.
• Pulse brain: the Mind Module that does the judging. Automatic uses the sidekick's own cloud thinking, so Pulses keep running whether or not your computer is on. Only modules tested for unattended decisions are listed.
• Pulse reasoning: how hard it thinks on each Pulse. Leave it on the preset default unless you have a reason. More reasoning makes decisions steadier, but it costs more and takes longer.

Below those settings, What that permits lights up the actions allowed at the current level. If an action is allowed but the ability it needs is switched off, the page tells you so. Sources held lower lists any sources capped below the sidekick's level.

Pulses and briefs also show up on the Scheduled Tasks page, so you can see everything your sidekick does on its own in one place.