Agent Design

Trigger Design

Create reliable conditions that activate specific behaviors.

Triggers are the entry points of behavior

Without a clear trigger an agent never activates no matter how well designed.

Internal triggers are thoughts and feelings — external triggers are events and cues.

A trigger must be something you can detect consistently.

Physical cues in your environment trigger more reliably than mental intentions.

Using specific times or time intervals as triggers leverages your existing time awareness.

Linking an agent to a specific event like arriving at work or opening your laptop.

Using specific emotional states as activation signals for pre-designed responses.

The completion of one agent becomes the trigger for the next.

Too sensitive and the agent fires too often — too insensitive and it never fires.

When a trigger fires in the wrong context you need to add qualifying conditions.

When you fail to notice a trigger you need to make it more salient.

Combining multiple trigger conditions for higher-specificity activation.

Position trigger cues where you will encounter them at the right moment.

Alarms, notifications, and calendar events as systematic trigger mechanisms.

Other people can serve as triggers — asking someone to remind you is a social trigger.

Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.

Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.

You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.

Start with broad triggers and narrow them as you learn what works.

A complete set of well-tuned triggers means you respond appropriately to everything that matters.