# Pulse AI

Pulse Patrol is available to everyone on the Community plan with BYOK (your own AI provider). Pro adds alert-triggered root-cause analysis and safe remediation workflows, while hosted Cloud carries those capabilities for hosted environments. Learn more at <https://pulserelay.pro> or see [PULSE_PRO.md](PULSE_PRO.md).

---

## Overview

Pulse includes two model-powered systems:

1. **Pulse Assistant** — An interactive chat interface for ad-hoc troubleshooting, investigations, and infrastructure control.
2. **Pulse Patrol** — A scheduled, context-aware model workflow that gathers infrastructure evidence, exposes governed tools, and asks your configured LLM to report actionable findings.

Both systems are built on the same tool-driven architecture: the configured LLM owns diagnosis, prioritization, remediation reasoning, and tool choice; Pulse supplies context, tools, safety gates, approval state, and audit trails.

### Not Just Another Chatbot

Pulse Assistant is a **protocol-driven, safety-gated LLM tool surface** that:

- **Provides governed context** — attaches explicit resource mentions and recent session facts without rewriting user intent
- **Caches session facts** — extracts bounded tool facts to avoid redundant queries during the current conversation
- **Enforces workflow invariants** — FSM prevents dangerous state transitions
- **Supports parallel tool execution** — efficient batch operations with concurrency control
- **Detects and prevents hallucinations** — phantom execution detection
- **Returns structured tool errors** — the model can recover from clear, machine-readable failures

📖 **For a deep technical dive into the Assistant architecture, see [architecture/pulse-assistant-deep-dive.md](architecture/pulse-assistant-deep-dive.md).**

### Not Just Another Alerting System

Pulse Patrol is a **scheduled model-owned operations loop** that:

- **Assembles evidence** from metrics, storage, backups, discovery, alerts, and resource timelines
- **Provides statistical context** such as baselines, trend summaries, capacity estimates, and event relationships
- **Lets the configured LLM reason** over that evidence and decide whether to call tools or report findings
- **Routes governed actions** through approval, entitlement, policy, verification, and audit boundaries
- **Preserves operator feedback** as context for future model runs without converting it into Pulse-authored fixes

All while running entirely on your infrastructure with BYOK for complete privacy.

📖 **For a deep technical dive into the Patrol runtime, see [architecture/pulse-patrol-deep-dive.md](architecture/pulse-patrol-deep-dive.md).**

See [architecture/pulse-assistant.md](architecture/pulse-assistant.md) for the original safety architecture documentation.

---

## Pulse Patrol

Patrol is a scheduled model workflow that builds a rich, system-wide snapshot and gives your configured LLM the tools it needs to produce actionable findings.

### How Patrol Works

```
Scheduled/Event Trigger
        │
        ▼
buildSeedContext()  ── infrastructure evidence and policy context
        │
        ▼
LLM analysis (with tools) ← pulse_storage, pulse_metrics, pulse_alerts, etc.
        │
        ▼
patrol_report_finding() / patrol_resolve_finding() ── model-owned finding lifecycle calls
        │
        ├── DetectSignals() ── deterministic evidence extraction from tool outputs
        │       │
        │       ▼
        │   Evaluation pass ── focused LLM review of unmatched evidence
        │
        ▼
model-reported findings ── validated, deduplicated, stored
        │
        ▼ (if configured)
MaybeInvestigateFinding() ── model investigation + governed remediation
```

### What Patrol Sees

Every patrol run passes the LLM comprehensive context about your environment:

| Data Category | What's Included |
|---------------|-----------------|
| **Proxmox Nodes** | Status, CPU%, memory%, uptime, 24h/7d trend analysis |
| **VMs & Containers** | Full metrics, backup status, OCI images, historical trends, anomaly evidence |
| **Storage Pools** | Usage %, capacity estimates, type (ZFS/LVM/Ceph), growth rates |
| **Docker/Podman** | Container counts, health states, unhealthy container lists |
| **Kubernetes** | Nodes, pods, deployments, services, DaemonSets, StatefulSets, namespaces |
| **TrueNAS** | Pools, datasets, disk health, SMART status, replication, alerts |
| **PBS/PMG** | Datastore status, backup jobs, job failures, verification status |
| **Ceph** | Cluster health, OSD states, PG status |
| **Agent Hosts** | Load averages, memory, disk, RAID status, temperatures |

### Model-Bound Context

Beyond raw metrics, Patrol prepares structured evidence for the model:

- **Trend summaries** — 24h and 7d samples showing `growing`, `stable`, `declining`, or `volatile` behavior
- **Baseline evidence** — Z-score anomaly evidence from historical metrics
- **Capacity estimates** — "Storage pool reaches 95% in about 12 days at current growth rate"
- **Infrastructure changes** — Detected config changes, VM migrations, new deployments
- **Resource relationships** — Related events and topology context
- **User notes** — Your annotations explaining expected behavior
- **Dismissed findings** — Respects your feedback and suppressed alerts
- **Investigation context** — Uses prior alert context, Patrol run history, and resource timelines

### Deterministic Evidence Extraction

Patrol parses tool outputs for concrete evidence such as backup failures, storage pressure, and disk health failures. These signals are not final findings by themselves: unmatched signals are sent to a focused LLM evaluation pass, and if the model still declines to report them, Pulse does not convert them into Pulse-authored findings.

| Signal Type | Trigger | Default Threshold |
|------------|---------|-------------------|
| `smart_failure` | SMART health status not OK/PASSED | N/A |
| `high_cpu` | Average CPU usage | 70% |
| `high_memory` | Average memory usage | 80% |
| `high_disk` | Storage pool usage | 75% (warning), 95% (critical) |
| `backup_failed` | Recent backup task with error status | Within 48h |
| `backup_stale` | No backup completed for VM/CT | 48+ hours |

Thresholds can be configured via alert settings to match user-defined values.

### Examples of What Patrol Catches

| Issue | Severity | Example |
|-------|----------|---------|
| **Disk approaching capacity** | Warning/Critical | Storage growing toward full with concrete time-to-threshold evidence |
| **Backup failures** | Warning | PBS job failed, no backup in 48+ hours |
| **Storage issues** | Critical | PBS datastore errors, ZFS pool degraded |
| **Ceph problems** | Warning/Critical | Degraded OSDs, unhealthy PGs |
| **Kubernetes issues** | Warning | Pods stuck in Pending/CrashLoopBackOff |
| **SMART failures** | Critical | Disk health check failed |
| **Alert-triggered investigations** | Pro / Cloud | A fired alert prompts the model to gather surrounding context and explain likely cause |

### What Patrol Ignores (by design)

Patrol is **intentionally conservative** to avoid noise:

- Small baseline deviations ("CPU at 15% vs typical 10%")
- Low utilization that's "elevated" but fine (disk at 40%)
- Stopped VMs/containers that were intentionally stopped
- Brief spikes that resolve on their own
- Anything that doesn't require human action
- Conditions already fully covered by the normal alert lifecycle unless the model finds additional context that changes the operator decision

> **Philosophy**: If a finding wouldn't be worth waking someone up at 3am, Patrol won't create it.

### Finding Severity

- **Critical**: Immediate attention required (service down, data at risk)
- **Warning**: Should be addressed soon (disk filling, backup stale)

Note: `info` and `watch` level findings are filtered out to reduce noise.

### Managing Findings

Findings can be managed via the UI or API:

- **Get help**: Chat with AI to troubleshoot the issue
- **Resolve**: Mark as fixed (finding will reappear if the issue resurfaces)
- **Dismiss**: Mark as expected behavior (creates suppression rule)

Dismissed and resolved findings persist across Pulse restarts.

---

## Autonomy Levels

Patrol supports three autonomy modes that control how much action it can take:

| Mode | Behavior | Plan |
|------|----------|------|
| **Monitor** | Detect issues only. No investigation or fixes. | Community (BYOK) |
| **Investigate** | Investigates findings and proposes fixes. All fixes require approval before execution. | Pro / hosted Cloud |
| **Remediate** | Runs governed remediation actions and verifies results. Critical findings still require approval by default. | Pro / hosted Cloud |

Community and Relay installs can still run scheduled Patrol findings with BYOK.
Investigation, proposed remediation, and fix execution are paid AI-operations
capabilities rather than a core monitoring limit.

### Investigation Flow

When a finding is created in Investigate or Remediate mode:

```
Finding created
      │
      ▼
MaybeInvestigateFinding()
      │
      ├─ Has orch + chatService?
      │        │
      │        ▼
      │   InvestigateFinding()
      │        │
      │        ▼
      │   Create chat session
      │        │
      │        ▼
      │   AI analysis (with tools)
      │        │
      │        ▼
      │   [Fix proposed?] ──Yes──► Queue approval (or auto-execute in full mode)
      │        │
      │        No
      │        ▼
      │   Update finding with outcome
      │
      └─ Skip investigation
```

### Investigation Configuration

| Setting | Default | Description |
|---------|---------|-------------|
| `MaxTurns` | 15 | Maximum agentic turns per investigation |
| `Timeout` | 10 min | Maximum duration per investigation |
| `MaxConcurrent` | 3 | Maximum concurrent investigations |
| `MaxAttemptsPerFinding` | 3 | Maximum investigation attempts per finding |
| `CooldownDuration` | 1 hour | Cooldown before re-investigating |
| `TimeoutCooldownDuration` | 10 min | Shorter cooldown for timeout failures |
| `VerificationDelay` | 30 sec | Wait before verifying fix |

### Investigation Outcomes

| Outcome | Meaning |
|---------|---------|
| `resolved` | Issue resolved during investigation |
| `fix_queued` | Fix proposed, awaiting approval |
| `fix_executed` | Fix auto-executed successfully |
| `fix_failed` | Fix attempted but failed |
| `fix_verified` | Fix worked, issue confirmed resolved |
| `fix_verification_failed` | Fix ran but issue persists |
| `needs_attention` | Requires human intervention |
| `cannot_fix` | Issue cannot be automatically fixed |
| `timed_out` | Investigation timed out (will retry sooner) |

---

## Pulse Assistant (Chat)

Pulse Assistant is a **tool-driven** chat interface. It does not "guess" system state — it calls live tools and reports their outputs.

### The Model's Workflow (Discover → Investigate → Act)

1. **Discover**: Uses `pulse_query` or `pulse_discovery` to find real resources and IDs
2. **Investigate**: Uses `pulse_read` to run bounded, read-only commands and check status/logs
3. **Act** (optional): Uses `pulse_control` for changes, then verifies with a read

### Available Tools

| Tool | Classification | Purpose |
|------|---------------|---------|
| `pulse_query`, `pulse_discovery` | Resolve | Resource discovery and query |
| `pulse_read` | Read | Read-only operations: exec, file, find, tail, logs |
| `pulse_metrics` | Read | Performance metrics and baselines |
| `pulse_storage` | Read | Storage pools, backups, snapshots, Ceph, RAID, disk health |
| `pulse_kubernetes` | Read | Kubernetes cluster info |
| `pulse_pmg` | Read | Proxmox Mail Gateway stats |
| `pulse_alerts` | Read/Write | Alert management (resolve/dismiss are writes) |
| `pulse_docker` | Read/Write | Docker operations (control/update are writes) |
| `pulse_knowledge` | Read/Write | Knowledge persistence (remember/note/save are writes) |
| `pulse_file_edit` | Read/Write | File operations (write/append are writes) |
| `pulse_control` | Write | Guest control, service management |
| `patrol_report_finding` | Patrol | Report a new finding (patrol runs only) |
| `patrol_resolve_finding` | Patrol | Resolve an active finding (patrol runs only) |
| `patrol_get_findings` | Patrol | List active findings (patrol runs only) |

### Safety Gates

The assistant enforces multiple safety gates:

1. **Discovery Before Action** — Action tools cannot operate on resources that weren't first discovered
2. **Verification After Write** — After any write, the model must perform a read/status check before providing a final answer
3. **Read/Write Separation** — Read operations route through `pulse_read` (stays in READING state); write operations route through `pulse_control` (enters VERIFYING state)
4. **Phantom Detection** — Detects when the model claims execution without tool calls
5. **Approval Mode** — In Controlled mode, every write requires explicit user approval
6. **Execution Context Binding** — Commands execute within the resolved resource's context, not on parent hosts

### Control Levels

| Level | Behavior | Plan |
|-------|----------|---------|
| **Read-only** | AI can observe and query data only | Community |
| **Controlled** | AI asks for approval before executing commands | Community |
| **Autonomous** | AI executes actions without prompting | Pro / hosted Cloud |

### Using Approvals (Controlled Mode)

When control level is **Controlled**, write actions pause for approval:

1. Tool returns `APPROVAL_REQUIRED: { approval_id, command, ... }`
2. Agentic loop emits `approval_needed` SSE event
3. UI shows approval card with the proposed command
4. **Approve** to execute and verify, or **Deny** to cancel
5. Only users with admin privileges can approve/deny

---

## Configuration

Configure in the UI: **Settings → System → AI Assistant**

### Supported Providers

- **Anthropic** (API key or OAuth)
- **OpenAI**
- **OpenRouter**
- **DeepSeek**
- **Google Gemini**
- **Ollama** (self-hosted, with tool/function calling support)
- **OpenAI-compatible base URL** (for providers that implement the OpenAI API shape)

### Models

Pulse uses model identifiers in the form: `provider:model-name`

You can set separate models for:
- Chat (`chat_model`)
- Patrol (`patrol_model`)
- Safe remediation model (`auto_fix_model`)

### Storage

AI settings are stored encrypted at rest in `ai.enc` under the Pulse config directory. Related files:

| File | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `ai.enc` | Encrypted AI configuration and credentials |
| `ai_findings.json` | Patrol findings |
| `ai_patrol_runs.json` | Patrol run history |
| `ai_usage_history.json` | Token usage data |
| `ai_chat_sessions.json` | Legacy chat sessions (UI sync) |
| `baselines.json` | Learned resource baselines |
| `ai_correlations.json` | Resource correlation data |
| `ai_patterns.json` | Detected patterns |

Config directory: `/etc/pulse` (systemd) or `/data` (Docker/Kubernetes)

### Testing

- Test provider connectivity: `POST /api/ai/test` and `POST /api/ai/test/{provider}`
- List available models: `GET /api/ai/models`

---

## Schedule and Triggers

Patrol runs on a configurable schedule:

| Interval | Description |
|----------|-------------|
| Disabled | Patrol runs only when manually triggered |
| 10 min – 7 days | Configurable interval (default: 6 hours) |

Patrol can also be triggered by:
- **Manual run**: Click "Run Patrol" in the UI
- **Alert-triggered analysis (Pro and above)**: Runs when an alert fires
- **API call**: `POST /api/ai/patrol/run`

---

## Model Context Layer

Pulse includes a model-context layer that aggregates evidence from AI runtime subsystems:

### Components

| Component | Purpose |
|-----------|---------|
| **Baseline Store** | Maintains statistical metric summaries and anomaly evidence |
| **Pattern Store** | Records recurring event evidence and trend context |
| **Correlation Store** | Links related events and resource relationships for model context |
| **Investigation Context** | Uses alert history, Patrol runs, and resource timelines |
| **Knowledge Store** | Persists user annotations and model-safe context |
| **Forecast Service** | Estimates capacity trajectories from historical samples |

### Health Scoring

The Patrol UI can show an operational score (A-F) based on active findings, Patrol coverage, runtime errors, and structured evidence. This score is a presentation aid, not a replacement for model diagnosis.

---

## Model Matrix (Pulse Assistant)

This table summarizes the most recent **Pulse Assistant** eval runs per model.

Update the table from eval reports:
```
EVAL_REPORT_DIR=tmp/eval-reports go run ./cmd/eval -scenario matrix -auto-models
python3 scripts/eval/render_model_matrix.py tmp/eval-reports --write-doc docs/AI.md
```
Or use the helper script:
```
scripts/eval/run_model_matrix.sh
```

<!-- MODEL_MATRIX_START -->
| Model | Smoke | Read-only | Time (matrix) | Tokens (matrix) | Last run (UTC) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| anthropic:claude-3-haiku-20240307 | ✅ | ❌ | 2m 42s | — | 2026-01-29 |
| anthropic:claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | ✅ | ✅ | 8s | 18,923 | 2026-01-29 |
| anthropic:claude-opus-4-5-20251101 | ✅ | ✅ | 9m 31s | 1,120,530 | 2026-01-29 |
| gemini:gemini-3-flash-preview | ✅ | ✅ | 7m 4s | — | 2026-01-29 |
| gemini:gemini-3-pro-preview | ✅ | ✅ | 3m 54s | 1,914 | 2026-01-29 |
| openai:gpt-5.2 | ✅ | ✅ | 5s | 12,363 | 2026-01-29 |
| openai:gpt-5.2-chat-latest | ✅ | ✅ | 8s | 12,595 | 2026-01-29 |
<!-- MODEL_MATRIX_END -->

---

## Safety Controls

Pulse includes settings that control how "active" AI features are:

- **Autonomous mode (Pro and above)**: When enabled, AI may execute safe commands without approval
- **Safe remediation workflows (Pro and above)**: Allows Patrol to propose and run governed remediation actions under the approval or autonomy policy you choose
- **Alert-triggered analysis (Pro and above)**: Limits AI to analyzing specific events when alerts occur
- **Full autonomy unlock (Pro and above)**: Permits critical remediation actions without approval (requires explicit toggle)

If you enable execution features, ensure agent tokens and scopes are appropriately restricted.

### Advanced Network Restrictions

Pulse blocks AI tool HTTP fetches to loopback and link-local addresses by default. For local development:

- `PULSE_AI_ALLOW_LOOPBACK=true`

Use this only in trusted environments.

---

## Privacy

Patrol runs on your server and only sends the minimal context needed for analysis to the configured provider (when AI is enabled). Anonymous outbound telemetry (counts and feature flags only — no hostnames or credentials) is enabled by default and can be disabled any time — see [Privacy](PRIVACY.md) for details.

---

## Why Patrol Is Different From Traditional Alerts

Alerts are threshold-based and narrow. Patrol gives the selected model a broader, tool-backed operating picture.

- **Alerts**: "Disk > 90%"
- **Patrol**: "The model sees ZFS pool usage, growth rate, datastore consumers, backup context, and governed tools, then decides whether that evidence warrants a finding or action recommendation."

---

## Cost Tracking

Pulse tracks token usage and costs:

- View usage summary: `GET /api/ai/cost/summary`
- Reset counters: `POST /api/ai/cost/reset` (admin)
- Set monthly budget limits in AI settings

---

## Troubleshooting

| Issue | Solution |
|-------|----------|
| AI not responding | Verify provider credentials in **Settings → System → AI Assistant** |
| No execution capability | Confirm at least one agent is connected |
| Findings not persisting | Check Pulse has write access to `ai_findings.json` in the config directory |
| Too many findings | This shouldn't happen — please report if it does |
| Investigation stuck | Check circuit breaker status at `/api/ai/circuit/status`; may auto-reset after cooldown |
| Model not available | Ensure provider API key is valid and model ID matches provider format |

## Related Documentation

### Deep Dives (Recommended for Technical Audiences)

- **[Pulse Assistant Deep Dive](architecture/pulse-assistant-deep-dive.md)** — Complete technical breakdown of the model-owned tool surface: explicit context, session fact caching, FSM enforcement, parallel execution, phantom detection, structured errors
- **[Pulse Patrol Deep Dive](architecture/pulse-patrol-deep-dive.md)** — Patrol runtime documentation: evidence assembly, deterministic signal extraction, model evaluation, investigation context, investigation orchestration

### Reference Documentation

- [Architecture: Pulse Assistant (Safety Gates)](architecture/pulse-assistant.md) — Detailed FSM states, tool protocol, and invariants
- [API Reference](API.md) — Complete API endpoint documentation
- [Plans and entitlements](PULSE_PRO.md) — Community/Relay/Pro/Cloud features and licensing