Intent Guardian

Never lose your train of thought again.

Intent Guardian continuously monitors your desktop activity, builds a real-time understanding of what you're working on, and detects when you've been derailed by an interruption and forgotten your original task. When that happens, it nudges you back on track.

The Problem

Knowledge workers are interrupted every 3 minutes on average. After an interruption, it takes ~23 minutes to return to the original task -- and often, you never return at all. Not because the task isn't important, but because you simply forgot.

Intent Guardian solves this by maintaining a task stack -- a living model of what you're doing, what you were doing, and what got interrupted -- so you don't have to.

When to Use

• - You are a multi-tasker who frequently context-switches between apps and tasks
• You often finish replying to a message and think "wait, what was I doing?"
• You want an AI companion that understands your work rhythm, not just your commands
• You want to build long-term awareness of your own focus patterns

Core Capabilities

1. Real-Time Activity Sensing

Polls the active window title and application name to build a continuous activity stream.

macOS:
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With ActivityWatch (richer data):
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With Screen Capture (optional, requires vision model):
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2. Task Stack Maintenance

The agent maintains a task stack in memory/skills/intent-guardian/task_stack.json:

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3. Interruption & Forgetting Detection

The agent analyzes the task stack to detect potential forgetting:

Signals that suggest forgetting:

• - A suspended task has not been resumed for longer than INLINECODE1
• The user has moved through 2+ unrelated contexts since the suspension
• The user shows "wandering" behavior: rapid app-switching without sustained focus
• The suspended task had low completion estimate (was in the middle of something)

Signals that suggest deliberate abandonment (do NOT remind):

• - The user explicitly closed the application associated with the task
• The task was at a natural completion point (e.g., finished sending an email)
• The user started a clearly intentional new deep-work session

4. Gentle Reminders

When forgetting is detected, the agent sends a non-intrusive reminder:

Simple reminder:

"You were working on the product requirements doc (section 3) about 25 minutes ago, before the Slack interruption. Want to go back to it?"

Smart reminder (with context carried forward):

"You left the product requirements doc to look up the useEffect cleanup pattern for Li Si's bug. The answer is: return a cleanup function in useEffect. Ready to bring this back to the doc?"

The second form is more powerful -- it doesn't just remind you what you forgot, it completes the reason you left, so you can return to your main task with the answer in hand.

5. Long-Term Pattern Learning

Over time, the agent builds a focus profile in memory/skills/intent-guardian/focus_profile.json:

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This profile is used to personalize detection thresholds and reminder timing.

Architecture

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Heartbeat Integration

Add to your HEARTBEAT.md:

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Cron Integration

Add a daily focus report:

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Setup

Minimal Setup (macOS, no dependencies)

1. 1. Install the skill:

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1. 2. The skill uses native macOS commands (osascript) to get the active window.

No additional software required.

1. 3. Add the Heartbeat integration above to your HEARTBEAT.md.

Enhanced Setup (with ActivityWatch)

1. 1. Install ActivityWatch for richer window-level tracking.
2. Set activitywatch_enabled: true in skill config.
3. ActivityWatch provides detailed per-window timelines including URLs and document titles.

Full Setup (with Screen Capture)

1. 1. Set screen_capture_enabled: true and configure vision_model.
2. Requires a vision-capable model (Claude, Gemini, Qwen3-VL).
3. Screenshots are captured locally, analyzed locally or via API, and never stored permanently.

Privacy & Security

• - All data stays local. Activity logs, task stacks, and focus profiles are stored as local files in your OpenClaw memory directory.
• No raw screenshots are persisted. If screen capture is enabled, frames are analyzed and immediately discarded. Only the semantic summary is kept.
• Excluded apps are respected. Configure excluded_apps to prevent tracking specific applications.
• Working hours enforced. Sensing only runs during configured working_hours_start to working_hours_end.
• You own the data. All files are human-readable JSON/JSONL. Review, edit, or delete at any time.

Configuration Reference

Key	Type	Default	Description
INLINECODE12	int	5	How often to check the active window
INLINECODE13

int | 5 | Minutes before a suspended task is flagged as potentially forgotten | | reminder_cooldown_minutes | int | 3 | Minimum time between reminders to avoid nagging | | max_stack_depth | int | 20 | Maximum tasks to track in the stack | | screen_capture_enabled | bool | false | Enable periodic screenshot analysis | | screen_capture_interval_seconds | int | 30 | Interval for screenshots (if enabled) | | vision_model | string | "" | Model for screenshot analysis (e.g., "gemini", "claude") | | activitywatch_enabled | bool | true | Use ActivityWatch for richer activity data | | activitywatch_url | string | "http://localhost:5600" | ActivityWatch server URL | | notification_channel | string | "system" | Where to send reminders ("system", "telegram", "slack", etc.) | | working_hours_start | string | "09:00" | Start of active tracking window | | working_hours_end | string | "18:00" | End of active tracking window | | excluded_apps | list | ["Finder", "SystemPreferences", "loginwindow"] | Apps to ignore |

Example Interactions

User: "What was I doing before I got sidetracked?"
Agent reads task_stack.json, responds:

"Before the Slack interruption at 14:31, you were writing section 3 of the product requirements doc in Google Docs. You were about 60% through. Want to jump back?"

User: "Show me my task stack"
Agent responds with current stack visualization:

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User: "How's my focus today?"
Agent reads activity log and focus profile:

"Today you've had 6 deep work sessions averaging 18 minutes each. You were interrupted 11 times, mostly by Slack (7 times). You forgot to return to your original task 4 times -- I caught 3 of those. Your peak focus was 09:30-10:45."

Proactive (via Heartbeat):

"Heads up -- you've been away from the quarterly report (Excel) for 40 minutes since that phone call. It's due tomorrow. Want to wrap up the current task and go back to it?"

Integration with Other Skills

Intent Guardian works well alongside these existing skills:

Skill	Integration
INLINECODE25	Feed focus_profile data into analytics for richer weekly reports
INLINECODE26

Include task completion stats and interruption counts in daily reviews |
| deepwork-tracker | Auto-start deepwork timer when sustained focus is detected |
| screen-monitor | Use screen_analyze for richer context when vision model is configured |
| rememberall | Convert suspended tasks into time-based reminders as fallback |
| get-focus-mode | Suppress reminders when macOS Focus mode is active |

Roadmap

• - [ ] Cross-device sync (remind on phone about tasks left on laptop)
• [ ] Team mode (with consent: "Zhang San is waiting for your review, 2 days now")
• [ ] Proactive task delegation ("I can draft that email reply while you focus on the doc")
• [ ] Calendar-aware urgency ("The quarterly report meeting is in 2 hours, and you're only 60% done")
• [ ] Intent hierarchy (L1-L4 goal tracking, not just immediate tasks)

License

MIT