What does it mean that time-to-fire metrics?

Track how quickly each agent responds to its trigger.

Example: A project manager notices that when a colleague makes an unreasonable request in a meeting, she now takes only a fraction of a second to recognize the boundary violation and begin formulating her response. Three months ago, the same trigger — the unreasonable request — would produce twenty minutes of confused compliance before the boundary agent activated. She did not become a different person. The agent was always there. What changed is the latency: the time between trigger and activation collapsed from minutes to milliseconds as the pattern became automatic. She measures this by journaling after meetings — how quickly did I recognize what was happening? The answer tells her more about agent health than whether she eventually responded correctly. An agent that fires correctly but late has already ceded the critical window where the response matters most.

Try this: Select one cognitive agent you have been developing — a habit, a decision rule, a boundary, or any if-then pattern you have installed. For the next three days, track its activation latency using this method. Each time the trigger occurs, notice two moments: when the trigger appeared and when you became aware of your agent activating. Record the approximate delay using a simple scale: INSTANT (the response felt automatic, no conscious gap), SECONDS (you noticed the trigger, paused briefly, then the agent engaged), MINUTES (you recognized the trigger only after some time had passed), or MISSED (you realized later that the trigger occurred and the agent did not fire at all). At the end of three days, plot your observations. Look for patterns: does the agent fire faster in certain contexts? Does fatigue, distraction, or social pressure increase latency? Calculate your rough distribution — what percentage of activations fall into each category? This is your personal p50/p95/p99 profile for that agent.