Monthly trigger audit: Is it firing? Do you respond? Is the behavior still relevant? Is calibration correct?

Why This Is a Rule

Trigger systems degrade through four distinct failure modes, each requiring a different intervention. A trigger can stop firing (environmental change made it invisible), fire but get ignored (alert fatigue from low actionability), fire for a behavior that's no longer relevant (context drift), or fire at the wrong sensitivity (calibration drift from gradual lifestyle changes). The four audit questions systematically check for each failure mode.

Monthly cadence matches the rate of trigger drift: environmental changes, routine shifts, and priority evolution happen on multi-week timescales. Weekly audits would be too frequent for established triggers (causing review fatigue), while quarterly audits would miss drift long enough for the trigger system to degrade significantly. Monthly hits the sweet spot for the Review new agents weekly, established ones monthly, and all agents after major context changes "established agent" review cadence.

Without structured audits, trigger systems accumulate dead triggers (silently stopped firing), noise triggers (fire but get dismissed — Remove any trigger that produces action less than 80% of firings — below this threshold, the trigger trains you to ignore it), and zombie triggers (fire for behaviors you've outgrown). These degrade the entire system's signal quality, making even well-designed triggers less effective because the brain learns "triggers in general are ignorable."

When This Fires

• At the scheduled monthly trigger review (this should be a triggered event itself — see Agent system review is essential maintenance, not optional improvement — ask: did it fire? Did it work? Has context changed?)
• When you notice your trigger system feels cluttered or ineffective
• After any major life change that might have disrupted multiple triggers simultaneously
• When new triggers are being added — audit existing ones first to maintain system quality

Common Failure Mode

Auditing only triggers that you remember: "Let me think about my triggers... the morning alarm, the evening review..." But the triggers you remember are the ones that are firing. The triggers that need auditing most are the ones you've forgotten about — the dead ones. The audit must start from the documented trigger list (Document every agent with five components: Name, Trigger, Conditions, Actions, Success Criteria — undocumented agents degrade silently), not from memory.

The Protocol

(1) Open your agent documentation (Document every agent with five components: Name, Trigger, Conditions, Actions, Success Criteria — undocumented agents degrade silently). List every documented trigger. (2) For each trigger, answer four questions: Is it still firing? When was the last time you noticed this trigger activate? If you can't remember → it may have died. Check whether the trigger event still occurs in your current routine. Do you respond? When it fires, do you act? If <80% (Remove any trigger that produces action less than 80% of firings — below this threshold, the trigger trains you to ignore it) → recalibrate or remove. Is the behavior still relevant? Does the behavior this trigger serves still matter? Priorities change; triggers for outdated goals should be retired. Is calibration correct? Is it firing at the right frequency and in the right contexts? Too often → reduce sensitivity. Too rarely → increase signal strength (When triggers fail to fire, increase signal strength through structural methods — don't try to 'remember better'). (3) For each trigger: keep, recalibrate, or retire. (4) Update documentation with audit results. (5) Schedule next month's audit.