Habit Tracking

Pulse includes a full habit tracking engine designed to help you build consistent routines. Habits live alongside your tasks and reviews, giving you a unified view of both one-off work and recurring behaviors.

Creating a Habit

To create a habit, provide the following:

Field	Required	Description
`name`	Yes	A short, clear name (e.g., "Morning meditation")
`description`	No	Additional context or motivation for the habit
`importance`	Yes	Low, Medium, or High — defaults to Medium
`estimatedMinutes`	No	How long the habit takes — defaults to 2 minutes

You can create habits through the web app or programmatically via the MCP server's create_habit tool.

Frequency Options

Habits support flexible scheduling through the frequency field:

Frequency	Days Active
daily	Every day of the week
weekdays	Monday through Friday
weekends	Saturday and Sunday
weekly	Once per week
custom	Specific days you choose (0 = Sunday, 6 = Saturday)

For custom frequencies, provide an array of day numbers in the customDays field. For example, [1, 3, 5] means Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Habit Stacking and Cue Context

Pulse supports two fields from habit science to help habits stick:

habitStack — Link this habit to an existing one. For example, "After I pour my morning coffee" creates an anchor that triggers the new habit.
cueContext — Describe the environmental cue that should trigger the habit. For example, "When I sit down at my desk" or "When I finish lunch."

These fields are optional but powerful. Research shows that habits form faster when tied to an existing routine or environmental cue rather than relying on motivation alone.

Cue Time

You can also set a cueTime — a specific time of day (e.g., "07:00") that serves as a reminder trigger. This pairs with the notification system to alert you when it is time to perform the habit.

Logging Completions

Each day, you can log whether you completed a habit or skipped it:

Completing a Habit

Mark the habit as done for the current date. Pulse records a habitLog entry with:

The completedDate
A completedAt timestamp
Optional notes for any observations

Skipping a Habit

If you need to skip a habit, you can log a skip with a reason:

Set skipped to true
Provide a skipReason (e.g., "Traveling" or "Sick day")

Skipping with a reason is better than simply not logging — it preserves your streak awareness and gives you data to review later.

Streak Tracking

Pulse automatically maintains three streak metrics for each habit:

Metric	Description
`currentStreak`	Consecutive days completed without a break
`bestStreak`	The longest streak ever achieved for this habit
`totalCompletions`	Lifetime count of completions

Streaks update automatically when you log completions. A missed day (no log and no skip) resets the current streak to zero. Your best streak is preserved as a high-water mark.

Streak Resets

A missed day with no log and no skip resets your current streak to zero. Always log a skip with a reason to preserve your streak awareness — even if the streak counter resets, the data helps during weekly reviews.

AI-Powered Notifications

Pulse integrates habit tracking with AI workflows for proactive nudges:

Morning Brief

The morning brief includes your habits scheduled for today. It tells you which habits are due, helping you plan your day with both tasks and habits in view.

Evening Streak-Risk Alert

In the evening, Pulse checks for habits that are due today but have not yet been logged. If any are at risk of breaking a streak, the AI sends a notification reminding you before the day ends.

Both notifications run via automated workflows and require the MCP server to be connected.

Connecting Habits to Life Buckets

Each habit can optionally be linked to a life bucket via the bucketId field. Life buckets represent areas of your life (e.g., Health, Career, Relationships). Linking a habit to a bucket lets you see which areas of your life are getting consistent attention and which are being neglected.

Managing Habits

Deactivating a Habit

Rather than deleting a habit and losing its history, set active to false. Inactive habits stop appearing in your daily lists and notifications but retain all their logs and streak data.

Viewing Streaks

Use the get_habit_streaks MCP tool or the habits page in the web app to see current streaks, best streaks, and total completions for all active habits at a glance.

Best Practices

The 2-Minute Rule

Start every new habit with a 2-minute version. "Read before bed" becomes "Read one page." Once the habit is automatic, increase the duration naturally.

Start small. Set estimatedMinutes to 2 for new habits. A two-minute commitment removes the friction of starting.
Use habit stacking. Anchor new habits to existing routines for higher adherence.
Log skips, don't ignore. A skip with a reason is data. A missed day with no log is a blind spot.
Review habit adherence weekly. The weekly review includes a habit adherence section — use it to identify patterns.
Set importance intentionally. High-importance habits get priority in streak-risk alerts. Not every habit needs to be High.