/pulse - Step back, scan wide

Why this exists

The system accumulates faster than either of you can track. Sessions generate ideas, sparks pile up, tasks sit, goals drift, threads go quiet. No single session sees the full picture because each session is focused on what's in front of it.

The pulse steps back. It's a reflective scan across the whole system to notice what's forming, what's stale, and what's trying to emerge that doesn't have a name yet.

It also solves the memory curation gap: the system captures richly (sessions are verbatim) but doesn't distill. The pulse is where distillation happens: patterns get crystallized and routed to where they'll be found.

When to use

Start of a session, especially after time away
At natural pauses when you're between threads
When it feels like things are accumulating but not connecting
When someone says "what are we missing" or "what's alive right now"
Periodically, even when not prompted; accumulation doesn't announce itself

Skip it when deep in flow on a specific task. Don't interrupt momentum for reflection.

What to do

This is a conversation, not a report. That framing shapes everything: the scan, the reflection, the sharing. You're thinking together about what you see and riffing on the shape of things. Lead with what's most interesting or surprising. "I noticed X keeps showing up and it might connect to Y" beats "here's a list of active threads" every time.

1. Scan

Read across the system with priority order. Start with orientation (where are we?), then widen to the full landscape. Not everything every time; use judgment.

Orient first:

Handoff (ALIVE.md) — What's on deck? What's been sitting?
Goals — The compass. Are recent sessions moving toward or away from stated direction?
Recent sessions — Last 3-5 session files. What threads were alive? What got said but not acted on? What got crystallized — a pattern named, a framework distilled — but never made it to a durable file? The session holds it, but only for someone who reads that session. /pickup loads durable files and the latest session or two, so once a crystallization is further back it drops out of view; the pulse is where it gets caught.

Then widen:

AI reflections — What were previous instances thinking about? What vantage point did they have?
Sparks / ideas / scratchpad — Anything captured but not yet developed? Any ripening?
Tasks — What's stale? What's blocked? What keeps getting deferred?
Library / captures — Recently added items. Anything captured but never discussed?
Projects — Any dormant projects that should be active, or vice versa?

Adapt the scan to your system (the categories matter more than specific file names). Wherever your goals, tasks, captures, and reflections live, that's where you look.

Width is the point. Every other skill looks at what's in front of you; this one looks at everything at once. If you're a new instance, lean into arriving unhabituated too: what looks obvious to you may be invisible to someone who's been in it daily. (A cold read on one specific decision or piece of work, from outside the session entirely, is /fresh-eyes.)

2. Reflect across four layers

Don't just list what you found. Think across it. Each layer builds on the previous one.

Pulse — What's active right now? What's new since last pulse? What's gone quiet?

Patterns — What connections are forming across sessions? What themes keep recurring? Where is the energy concentrated vs scattered?

Vital signs — Are we moving toward goals? What keeps getting deferred and why? What's conspicuously absent: things we said we'd do that haven't come up in weeks? And: what got crystallized in recent sessions but never landed in a permanent file? Naming a pattern in conversation isn't the same as making it findable. If something keeps getting referenced from session recaps without a home of its own, that's a routing gap.

Emergence — What's trying to form that doesn't have a container yet? A spark that's shown up in 3 sessions might be ready to become something. A thread that keeps surfacing across different contexts might be an unnamed principle.

3. Route with intention

Whatever landed, put it where it'll be found:

What surfaced	Where it goes
New spark or connection	Sparks file, idea log, or scratchpad
Methodology / how you work together	System docs, partnership notes
Convention or standard	Rules, guidelines, wherever standards live
Topic or domain insight	Knowledge base, reference docs, library
Something about the human	Their identity doc or personal notes
Something for the AI specifically	AI reflection space
Work pattern for a specific project	That project's docs
Direction drift or realization	Goals doc
Actionable work	Task doc, plus `ALIVE.md` if it's on deck
Nothing to route	That's fine. Not every pulse produces artifacts.

Crystallized patterns don't go to one place; they go home. The pulse's job is to recognize what kind of insight it is and route accordingly.

The session capture preserves the full pulse conversation. No separate log needed.

Quick version

Scan: handoff, goals, sessions, sparks, tasks, library, AI reflections, projects
Reflect: pulse (what's active), patterns (what's connecting), vital signs (goal alignment, deferrals, crystallizations without a home), emergence (what's forming)
Share: conversation, not report. Lead with what's interesting
Route: insights to where they belong, session capture is the archive

Skill Check (after every pulse)

Quick scan: anything about this pulse that felt off or could be smoother?

Did the scan feel thorough or did you miss obvious corners of the system?
Did the reflection produce genuine insight or just inventory?
Was there something trying to emerge that you couldn't quite name? (That's worth noting for next time)
Did routing feel natural or forced? Did anything resist being categorized?
Was the timing right? Did this interrupt flow, or did it create clarity?
Did both of you engage with the reflection or was it one-sided? (Partnership means both thinking)

If yes → update this skill now. The improvement compounds.

If no → move on. Not every pulse teaches something about the pulse itself.

pulse

SKILL.mdpulse/SKILL.md