Nag — Persistent Reminders

Nag manages reminders that don't give up. Each reminder has a first-fire time, a nag window, and resets daily.

When to Use

• Recurring daily habits (supplements, workouts, practice)
• Tasks that get ignored/forgotten without follow-up
• Anything where "remind me once" isn't enough

When NOT to Use

• One-shot reminders ("remind me in 20 minutes") — use a cron job with schedule.kind: "at"
• Time-critical alerts that can't wait for a heartbeat cycle
• Reminders that don't need confirmation (informational only)

Setup

1. State File

Create memory/nag-state.json in the workspace:

{
  "date": "2026-02-15",
  "reminders": {}
}

The date field triggers automatic daily resets — when today's date differs from the stored date, all reminders reset to unconfirmed.

2. Reminder Config

Create nag-config.json in the workspace root:

{
  "reminders": [
    {
      "id": "morning-supplements",
      "label": "morning supplements",
      "cronFirst": "0 8 * * *",
      "nagAfter": "09:00",
      "confirmPatterns": ["taken", "done", "took them", "did it", "yes"],
      "tone": "friendly but persistent, escalate to ALL CAPS drama after 3 nags",
      "messages": {
        "first": "Time for morning supplements!"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Fields:

Field	Required	Description
id	yes	Unique identifier, used as key in state file
label	yes	Human-readable name for display
cronFirst	yes	Cron expression for initial reminder (create a cron job for this)
nagAfter	yes	Time (HH:MM, 24h) after which heartbeat nags begin
confirmPatterns	yes	Array of phrases that mark the reminder as done (case-insensitive, substring match)
tone	no	Personality guidance for generating nag messages. If absent, use a neutral friendly tone. The model has creative liberty to vary the wording each nag.
messages.first	no	Text sent by the cron job for the initial reminder. If absent, generate from label + tone.
messages.nag	no	Suggested nag text. If absent, generate contextually from label + tone + nagCount.
messages.escalate	no	Suggested text after 3+ ignored nags. If absent, generate with increased urgency from tone.
days	no	Array of weekday names to restrict when this reminder fires (e.g. ["monday", "wednesday", "friday"]). Omit for every day.

For more examples, see references/config-examples.md.

Message generation: When messages.nag or messages.escalate are absent, generate them on the fly using the label and tone fields. Vary the wording each time — don't repeat the same nag verbatim. Use nagCount to calibrate urgency: low count = gentle, 3+ = escalated.

3. Wire Up Cron + Heartbeat

For each reminder, create a cron job that fires messages.first at the cronFirst schedule.

In HEARTBEAT.md, add a nag check block:

## Nag Check
Read nag-config.json and memory/nag-state.json.
For each reminder in nag-config.json:
- If date in state differs from today, reset all reminders (set confirmed: false, nagCount: 0).
- Skip if today's weekday isn't in the reminder's `days` array (if specified).
- If current time is after `nagAfter` and confirmed is false: send a nag message to the user.
  - Generate the message from the reminder's label and tone (or use messages.nag if provided).
  - If nagCount >= 3, escalate urgency (use messages.escalate if provided, otherwise generate with more intensity).
  - Increment nagCount in state.
- Do NOT nag before the nagAfter time.

4. Confirmation Handling

When the user sends a message matching any confirmPatterns for a reminder, update memory/nag-state.json:

{
  "date": "2026-02-15",
  "reminders": {
    "morning-supplements": {
      "confirmed": true,
      "confirmedAt": "09:06",
      "nagCount": 1
    }
  }
}

Match confirmation by checking if any pattern appears as a substring (case-insensitive) in the user's message. When ambiguous (multiple reminders could match), match the one currently in its nag window.

Adding a New Reminder

1. Add entry to nag-config.json
2. Create a cron job for the cronFirst schedule
3. The heartbeat nag block handles everything else automatically

Removing a Reminder

1. Remove entry from nag-config.json
2. Remove or disable the corresponding cron job
3. Optionally clean up its key from memory/nag-state.json