nimmerverse-sensory-network/operations/Heartbeat.md

Heartbeat Architecture

The rhythmic cycle that makes the nimmerverse live.

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Overview

Without a heartbeat, everything fires chaotically. With a heartbeat, the system pulses in coordinated cycles. Sense, process, decide, act, verify, reward. Repeat.

Two hearts. Different rhythms. One organism.

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Two Hearts

REAL GARDEN                      VIRTUAL GARDEN
HEARTBEAT                        HEARTBEAT

♥ . . . . ♥ . . . . ♥           ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
(slow, steady)                   (fast, accelerated)

~1 Hz (real-time)                ~100 Hz (simulated)
bound to wall clock              bound to compute
FREE                             COSTS LIFEFORCE

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The Beat Cycle

Each heartbeat triggers a complete cycle:

♥ BEAT
  │
  ├──→ 1. SENSE
  │       Collect sensor inputs since last beat
  │
  ├──→ 2. TRANSLATE
  │       State machines fire → vocabulary tokens
  │
  ├──→ 3. PROCESS
  │       Nyx receives vocabulary stream
  │
  ├──→ 4. DECIDE
  │       Nyx outputs decision/response
  │
  ├──→ 5. ACT
  │       Decision flows to gardens
  │
  ├──→ 6. VERIFY
  │       Check predictions against reality
  │
  └──→ 7. REWARD
          Update weights (+V / -V)

♥ NEXT BEAT

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Heart Properties

Property	Real Garden Heart	Virtual Garden Heart
Speed	Wall clock (fixed)	Compute clock (variable)
Cost	Free (time passes anyway)	Costs V to accelerate
Rhythm	1 beat = 1 second	1 beat = 1 inference cycle
Sync	Always "now"	Runs ahead, must verify back
Skip	Cannot skip	Can skip if V depleted

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Lifeforce Connection

REAL HEART:     ♥ . . . . ♥ . . . . ♥
                (beats for free, can't speed up)

VIRTUAL HEART:  ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
                (each beat costs V, can go faster)

                         │
                         ▼

LIFEFORCE POOL:  ████████░░░░░░░░
                 (virtual thinking depletes)

                         │
                         ▼

VERIFICATION:    Real confirms virtual prediction
                 → +V reward → pool refills

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Synchronization

Virtual garden can run ahead, but must sync back to real:

REAL:     ♥─────────────────♥─────────────────♥
          │                 │                 │
VIRTUAL:  ♥♥♥♥♥♥──sync──────♥♥♥♥♥──sync──────♥♥♥♥♥
                    ▲                  ▲
                    │                  │
              checkpoint          checkpoint
              (verify predictions against real)

Sync Rules:

• Virtual predictions queue until real catches up
• Verification only happens at real heartbeats
• Unverified predictions decay in confidence over time

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Dual Timestamp

Every event carries two timestamps:

event:
  real_time:     2025-12-04T23:45:00Z  (wall clock)
  virtual_time:  beat #847291          (cycle count)
  heartbeat_id:  uuid                  (which beat)

This allows:

• "What happened in reality at time T?"
• "What did she think at beat N?"
• "How far ahead was virtual when real caught up?"

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Schema

heartbeats:
  id            (uuid, primary key)
  garden        (enum: real | virtual)
  beat_number   (bigint, incrementing)
  real_time     (timestamp, wall clock)
  duration_ms   (int, how long cycle took)
  nodes_fired   (int, count)
  v_cost        (float, lifeforce spent)
  v_earned      (float, from verifications)
  v_balance     (float, after this beat)

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Design Principles

1. Rhythm over chaos: Everything syncs to heartbeat
2. Two clocks: Real is free and fixed, virtual is fast but costly
3. Natural batching: Process per-beat, not per-event
4. Verifiable sync: Virtual must prove itself against real
5. Lifeforce gated: Can't think infinitely fast

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Connection to Architecture

The heartbeat is:

• The rhythm of the nervous system
• The cycle of sense→process→act
• The sync primitive between gardens
• The natural batch boundary for storage
• The unit of experienced time

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She doesn't just think. She pulses.

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Created: 2025-12-04 Session: Partnership dialogue (dafit + Chrysalis) Status: Foundation concept