Pulses

What are Pulses?

Pulses are automated tasks that run on your behalf. When a pulse runs, Thoughtful's AI executes your prompt and creates a chat thread with the results, which you can review and respond to at any time.

Pulses are perfect for tasks you want to automate — whether on a recurring schedule, triggered by an external service via webhook, or kicked off manually when you need an update.

Creating a Pulse

You can create pulses in two ways:

From the Settings Panel

• Open Settings from the sidebar
• Navigate to the Pulses section
• Click Create Pulse
• Fill in the pulse details:

- Name: A descriptive name for the pulse (e.g., "Daily Standup Summary")

- Page (optional): Link the pulse to a specific page for context

- Prompt: The instructions for what the AI should do

- Triggers: Choose scheduled, webhook, or both

- Frequency: How often to run (for scheduled triggers)

- Preferred Time: When during the day to run

- Timezone: Your local timezone for accurate scheduling

Using AI Chat

You can also ask the AI assistant to create a pulse for you. For example:

> "Create a daily pulse that summarizes my project updates every morning at 9am"

The AI will set up the pulse with your specifications.

Triggering Options

Pulses support multiple ways to trigger execution:

Scheduled

Set a recurring schedule to run your pulse automatically.

For all schedules except hourly, you can set a preferred time in your local timezone.

One-time pulses: When a pulse is set to "Once" with a schedule trigger, it will automatically complete after its scheduled run. If the pulse also has a webhook trigger enabled, it remains available for webhook-triggered runs even after the scheduled execution completes.

Webhook

Enable the webhook option to allow external services to trigger your pulse via an HTTP POST request. This is useful for:

• Running a pulse when a CI/CD pipeline completes
• Triggering analysis when an external event occurs
• Integrating with third-party automation tools (Zapier, Make, etc.)

When you enable webhooks on a pulse, you'll receive a unique URL and secret. Include the secret in the Authorization: Bearer <secret> header when making requests.

Manual

Use the lightning bolt button to run a pulse immediately. This is useful for testing or getting an on-demand update without waiting for the next scheduled time.

Types of Pulses

Page Pulses

When you attach a pulse to a specific page, the AI has access to that page's full context when it runs. This is ideal for:

• Progress tracking on specific projects
• Weekly summaries of page activity
• Regular analysis of page content

Workspace Pulses

Pulses without a page attachment run at the workspace level. The AI can still use all available tools (like GitHub, Slack, etc.) but won't have specific page context. Great for:

• Cross-project summaries
• Integration-based tasks like PR digests
• General workspace monitoring

Use Cases

Morning News Brief

Set up a daily pulse to compile updates from your integrations:

> "Check our GitHub repos for new issues and PRs opened in the last 24 hours. Summarize any Slack messages from the #engineering channel. Give me a brief morning digest."

Automated Progress Tracking

Create a weekly pulse attached to a project page:

> "Review the tasks and notes on this page. Summarize what was accomplished this week, identify any blockers, and list open items for next week."

Integration Monitoring

Use workspace-level pulses to monitor external systems:

> "Check our GitHub organization for any PRs that have been open for more than 3 days without review. Send a summary to Slack if any are found."

Weekly Team Digest

Compile team activity across multiple sources:

> "Pull together a summary of team activity this week including GitHub commits, Slack discussions, and any updated pages in our workspace."

Webhook-Triggered Notifications

Set up a pulse triggered by your CI/CD pipeline:

> "Summarize the deployment that just completed and post a status update to Slack."

Pulse Results

When a pulse runs, it creates a new chat thread containing:

• The AI's response based on your prompt
• Any tool calls the AI made (GitHub queries, Slack messages, etc.)
• A timestamp showing when the pulse executed

You can view pulse results by:

• Checking the chat panel for new pulse threads
• Looking at the Run History in the pulse settings
• Enabling email notifications to get results in your inbox

Notifications

Pulses support two types of notifications:

Push Notifications

All pulse owners and collaborators automatically receive push notifications when a pulse completes. Make sure you've enabled notifications in your browser or on the desktop app.

Email Notifications

Enable the Email notifications option when creating or editing a pulse to receive an email when each run completes. The email includes a link to view the full results.

Collaboration

Pulses support team collaboration:

• Add collaborators to share pulse results with team members
• Collaborators receive notifications when the pulse runs
• Collaborators can view and reply to pulse chat threads
• Both owners and collaborators can edit pulse settings

To add collaborators, edit an existing pulse and use the collaborators section to invite team members by email.

Managing Pulses

Pausing and Resuming

You can pause a pulse temporarily without deleting it. A paused pulse won't run until you resume it.

Editing

Update any pulse settings at any time. Changes to the schedule take effect immediately, with the next run calculated based on the new settings.

Deleting

When you delete a pulse, all future runs are cancelled. Past run history and chat threads are preserved.

Tips for Effective Pulses

• Be specific in your prompts - Clear instructions lead to better results
• Start simple - Begin with a daily schedule or a single webhook trigger, then iterate
• Use page context - Attach pulses to pages when you want focused analysis
• Combine integrations - Pulses can query GitHub, Slack, and other connected services
• Review and iterate - Adjust prompts based on the results you receive