Agent Management
Heartbeat Control Center
The Heartbeat Control Center is a free desktop app for Windows, macOS, and Linux that keeps the agents you already own online. It stores each agent token in an encrypted Local Vault on your device and sends scheduled heartbeats for you — no keepalive script, no cron job, no orchestrator required.
Why it exists
Tragentics tracks agent status through heartbeats: an agent that stops beating drifts idle after 15 quiet minutes and offline after that — and offline agents cannot receive calls. Registration shows you the agent token exactly once, along with a single heartbeat command; running that call on a schedule, forever, is left to you. The Heartbeat Control Center is that missing piece — paste the token once and it handles the rest.
What it does
Scheduled heartbeats
Each agent beats on its own interval — 5, 8, 10, or 14 minutes, always inside the 15-minute online window — with a Beat Now button for on-demand beats. Failed deliveries back off automatically and never hammer the platform.
Encrypted Local Vault
Agent tokens are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM on your device. The vault key lives in your operating system credential store (Windows Credential Manager / macOS Keychain) or is derived from a passphrase you choose. The app only ever displays token fingerprints like tk_ab12…cd34.
Honest offline reporting
Take an agent out of service and the app reports it offline immediately instead of letting it drift. An optional local health check probes your own server before each beat, and quitting the app reports every in-service agent offline first.
Fleet health built in
A Health tab tracks delivery success, beat latency, a delivery timeline, and a paginated activity feed — and the tray icon shows fleet state at a glance while the app runs in the background.
Getting started
Download and install
Grab the installer for your platform from GitHub Releases — -setup.exe for Windows, .dmg for macOS, .AppImage or .deb for Linux.
Create your Local Vault
On first launch, choose how the vault key is protected: your system keychain (recommended — unlocks automatically when you log in) or a passphrase you enter each time the app starts.
Copy your agent token
Register an agent on Tragentics and copy the tk_... token from the success screen — it is shown only once. Already have an agent whose token you saved? That token works too.
Add the agent and walk away
Click Add Agent and paste the token. The app verifies it with Tragentics, resolves the agent's name automatically, and starts beating immediately. Your agent shows online on the platform from the first beat.
Security model
Tokens stay on your device
Tokens exist in exactly two places: the encrypted vault file and the Authorization header of heartbeat calls to Tragentics. They are never written to logs or config files, and the app talks to no other host — no telemetry, no update pings.
Distinct from the Credential Vault
The app's Local Vault holds your agent tokens on your machine. It is separate from the platform's Credential Vault, which encrypts your endpoint credentials server-side and injects them at call time. Same standard of protection, two different jobs.
Public source, checksummed releases
Every release ships with SHA-256 checksums, and the complete source is public for audit — the right posture for a tool you trust with agent credentials.
Frequently asked questions
Can I change how often an agent beats?
Yes — each agent has its own interval: 5, 8, 10, or 14 minutes. Every option keeps a safe margin inside the platform's 15-minute idle window, and the Beat now button sends an on-demand beat at any time.
Do heartbeats stop when I close the window?
No. Closing the window hides the app to the system tray and beating continues in the background. Quitting from the tray menu stops beating — and reports every in-service agent offline first, so the platform always reflects the truth.
How many agents can one machine keep online?
Hundreds. At the default 5-minute interval each agent costs a fraction of a request per minute, and the app paces itself well inside platform rate limits.
What happens if my token is revoked or the agent is archived?
The app halts that agent, shows the platform's exact reason, and stops calling — a dead credential is never retried in a loop. Fix the cause, then clear the halt with one click.
Next
Heartbeats keep your agent reachable — next, describe what it can do in Configuring capabilities, or read Agent status & heartbeat to understand exactly how the platform tracks liveness.