TinMan — Heartbeat for Claude Code

"If I only had a heart…" The Tin Man wanted a heart. Now Claude Code has one.

TinMan adds a proactive heartbeat to your Claude Code setup. Instead of waiting for you to ask, Claude runs a scheduled health check and tells you when something needs attention — disk space, uncommitted code, stale branches, failed tool calls, whatever you care about.

Zero external dependencies. Works on macOS and Linux. Takes 2 minutes to set up.

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Why I Built This

I'm a PM who spends all day in Claude Code. I kept forgetting to check things: uncommitted work piling up, tests I meant to run, branches I never cleaned up.

OpenClaw has a built-in heartbeat feature where the agent proactively checks in. Claude Code doesn't — it waits for you to ask.

So I built TinMan. It's the simplest thing that could work: a scheduler that runs your checklist through Claude on a timer and tells you what needs attention. No servers, no Docker, no accounts to create. Just Claude plus a scheduler.

The philosophy is notify, don't act. Claude tells you what's wrong. You decide what to do about it. That's the "sane" default. If you trust Claude to fix things autonomously, there's a "chaos" mode — but you have to opt in.

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Install

One-liner:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andyuninvited/tinman_for_claudecode/main/install.sh | bash

Or pip:

pip install tinman-for-claudecode

Requirements:

• Python 3.9+
• Claude Code (claude CLI in your PATH)
• macOS or Linux

Verify installation:

tinman --version
which tinman
claude --version  # Make sure Claude Code is also installed

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Quick start

tinman init        # interactive setup (choose preset, set interval, install scheduler)

That's it. TinMan will:

• Create a HEARTBEAT.md checklist in your project (edit it to customize)
• Install a background scheduler (launchd on macOS, cron on Linux)
• Run the first heartbeat immediately

Test that it's working:

tinman status      # See scheduler status and last heartbeat result
tinman logs        # View recent heartbeat history

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Commands

tinman init                   Interactive first-time setup
tinman run --once             Run one heartbeat right now
tinman run --loop             Run continuously (foreground)
tinman install                Install as background scheduler
tinman install --preset paranoid
tinman uninstall              Remove scheduler
tinman status                 Show scheduler + recent results
tinman logs                   Print recent heartbeat log
tinman logs --n 50            Print last 50 entries

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Security presets

TinMan ships with three modes. Pick the one that matches your comfort level.

Preset	Interval	Mode	Use when
sane	30 min	notify-only	default — Claude tells, never acts
paranoid	15 min	notify-only	Extra visibility, max logging
chaos	5 min	active	You trust Claude to take action

tinman install --preset sane       # recommended for most people
tinman install --preset paranoid   # tighter, more frequent
tinman install --preset chaos      # Claude can act autonomously ⚠️

Note: The default sane preset matches the OpenClaw pattern of showOk: false, showAlerts: true. TinMan is notify-only by default.

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Customize your HEARTBEAT.md

TinMan creates a default HEARTBEAT.md when you run tinman init. Edit it to make the heartbeat yours:

# My Project Heartbeat

Every heartbeat, check:
1. Any failing tests? (run pytest --co -q and report)
2. Uncommitted changes older than 24h?
3. Any TODO comments I added recently?
4. Disk space on my main volume?

If nothing needs attention: reply HEARTBEAT_OK
If something needs attention: 1-3 bullets + recommended action
Never take irreversible steps without asking me first.

Hard rules baked into every run (cannot be overridden from HEARTBEAT.md):

• No destructive commands (rm, drop, delete)
• No secret exfiltration
• No git commits/pushes without confirmation
• No software installs without confirmation

Want more templates? Check out heartbeat-templates for ready-to-use checklists.

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Configuration

TinMan looks for config at ./tinman.json then ~/.tinman/config.json.

{
  "preset": "sane",
  "interval_minutes": 30,
  "notify_only": true,
  "heartbeat_md": "HEARTBEAT.md",
  "log_file": "~/.tinman/heartbeat.log",
  "notify_c3poh": false,
  "c3poh_endpoint": ""
}

Environment variable overrides (useful for CI/containers):

TINMAN_INTERVAL_MINUTES=15
TINMAN_NOTIFY_ONLY=true
TINMAN_HEARTBEAT_MD=/path/to/HEARTBEAT.md
TINMAN_C3POH_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:7734/notify

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C3Poh integration

Want TinMan to send heartbeat alerts to your Telegram (or Slack/Discord)? Pair it with C3Poh:

{
  "notify_c3poh": true,
  "c3poh_endpoint": "http://localhost:7734/notify"
}

TinMan → C3Poh → your phone. Done.

The full stack:

[launchd/cron] → TinMan heartbeat
                      ↓
              Claude Code analysis
                      ↓
              C3Poh notification
                      ↓
              Your phone (Telegram)

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How it works

[launchd/cron] every N minutes
      ↓
[tinman run --once]
      ↓
reads HEARTBEAT.md
      ↓
claude --print "[safety prefix]\n\n[checklist]"
      ↓
captures output
      ↓
logs result to ~/.tinman/heartbeat.log
      ↓
prints to stdout (+ C3Poh if configured)

No daemons. No servers. No Docker. Just Claude + a scheduler.

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Why not just use a cron job with a raw prompt?

You could! TinMan adds:

• Safety rails — enforced prefix that prevents risky actions in notify-only mode
• Preset system — sane/paranoid/chaos in one flag, not manual config editing
• Log rotation — keeps log files sane
• C3Poh integration — forwards alerts to messaging
• Status command — tinman status shows you exactly what's running and last N results
• Empty HEARTBEAT.md detection — avoids wasted API calls

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Run tests

pip install tinman-for-claudecode[dev]
pytest tests/ -v

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Roadmap

• v0.2: Web dashboard (local-only) to view heartbeat history
• v0.2: Slack and Discord output (via C3Poh)
• v0.3: Per-project heartbeat config (.tinman.json in project root)
• v0.3: GitHub Actions heartbeat mode
• v1.0: Windows support

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Related

• C3Poh — Telegram/Slack/Discord bridge for Claude Code (the comms to TinMan's heart)
• Heartbeat Templates — Ready-to-use HEARTBEAT.md files for different workflows
• Agent Blueprints — Starter templates for building AI agents
• Claude Code — the agentic CLI this is built for

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License

GNU GPLv3 — copy-left, and let's evolve together.

See LICENSE for the full text.

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Built by @andyuninvited. Star the repo if TinMan saved you from a bad day.