Pulses

A Pulse is the atomic unit of state declaration in the Intention Space framework. Unlike traditional variables that hold mutable state, a Pulse is a plain-language, immutable declaration of what should be true at a given point in a computational flow.

Why Pulses?

In conventional programming, state is scattered across variables, configuration files, and implicit assumptions embedded in control flow. Pulses externalize this:

{
  "pulse": "service-ready",
  "value": "Cloud Run instance healthy, accepting traffic on port 8080",
  "confidence": 0.95
}

Pulses make the invisible visible — every assumption becomes an explicit, testable declaration.

Properties of a Pulse

• Immutable — once declared, a pulse is not modified; new pulses are created
• Observable — any component can subscribe to pulse state changes
• Composable — pulses combine to form higher-order intentions
• Traceable — every pulse carries provenance metadata

Pulse Lifecycle

This explicit lifecycle eliminates the "silent failure" problem where systems continue operating under invalid assumptions.