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Setting Up the CTO

1

Open the CTO tab

Click the CTO tab in ADE’s left icon rail. On first launch, the onboarding wizard starts automatically.
2

Complete the onboarding wizard

The wizard walks through three steps:
  1. Identity creation — give the CTO a name and an initial persona prompt. This shapes how it communicates and what it prioritizes.
  2. Project scanning — the CTO reads your repository structure, existing PRD/architecture docs, recent git history, and .ade/ state to build its initial Project Pack. This takes 30–90 seconds on a typical project.
  3. Integration handoff — optionally connect Linear (OAuth or manual token) and configure the heartbeat schedule.
**Screenshot: The CTO onboarding wizard on step 2 (“Project Scanning”) — showing a progress indicator with items being checked off: “Reading repository structure ✓”, “Analyzing recent commits ✓”, “Loading existing packs… (in progress)”, “Connecting to Linear (skipped)”.
3

Configure the heartbeat

In CTO > Settings, set the heartbeat interval. The default is every 15 minutes. You can also configure event-based triggers (e.g., “run when a PR is opened”, “run when a lane enters conflict status”).
4

Verify the CTO is active

The CTO Status panel (top of the CTO > Chat sub-tab) shows the last heartbeat time, next scheduled heartbeat, and a green “Active” badge. If it shows “Inactive”, check that at least one AI provider is configured in Settings > AI Providers.

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Heartbeat Configuration

The CTO’s heartbeat is its core activation mechanism. On each heartbeat, the CTO runs a full project scan and takes any warranted actions.

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What the CTO checks on each heartbeat

  1. New commits — compares HEAD SHAs across all lanes to its last-known state
  2. PR status changes — checks for newly opened, approved, merged, or failed PRs
  3. Linear issue updates — polls for new comments, status transitions, and assignments in connected projects
  4. Stuck lanes — identifies lanes in blocked or conflict status longer than a configurable threshold
  5. Budget overruns — flags workers that have exceeded or are approaching their token/cost budgets
  6. Stale Lane Packs — identifies packs that have not been regenerated after recent commits

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Heartbeat schedule options

Run every N minutes. Suitable for active development days where you want frequent check-ins.
# .ade/ade.yaml
cto:
  heartbeat:
    mode: interval
    interval_minutes: 15

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Identity Restoration After Compaction

When a CTO chat session hits the compaction threshold, ADE automatically re-injects the CTO’s identity context after compaction completes. This means the CTO’s persona, core memory, memory protocol, and daily context instructions survive compaction — the CTO never loses its sense of self mid-conversation, even during very long sessions. This also applies to worker agents that have an identity key assigned.

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Manual activation

You can trigger the CTO immediately from the UI:
  • Click Run Heartbeat Now in the CTO Status panel
  • Type a message in the CTO Chat — this activates the CTO in conversational mode
  • Via Automations using the cto-route executor mode