Pulse Assistant/DA subsystem broken on every fresh v5.0.0 install (missing PULSE/Assistant/module.ts + hardcoded primary = "kai")

[jearnest11]

Summary

On a clean v5.0.0 install, the Pulse DA/Assistant subsystem never starts — the
DA card is empty and the assistant-tasks cron fails. Two separate root causes,
both in the published repo (checked against main, HEAD 2fde1bb). Reproduced
across two independent fresh installs.

Bug 1 — PULSE/Assistant/module.ts is missing from the repo

PULSE/pulse.ts imports and calls it:

• pulse.ts:117 → assistantModule = await import("./Assistant/module")
• pulse.ts:278 → assistantModule.assistantHealth()
• pulse.ts:362 → assistantModule.startAssistant(config.da, enabledJobs)

But PULSE/Assistant/module.ts exists nowhere in the repo (not gitignored —
simply not committed). Runtime result:

warn Assistant module not available
error: Cannot find module './Assistant/module' from '.../PULSE/pulse.ts'
warn Skipping assistant-tasks: 3 consecutive failures

Likely a casualty of the recent Pulse → PULSE directory-casing migration
(#1259 / #1175 / #1273) — the Assistant/ folder appears to have been dropped
in the rename.

Fix: restore the canonical PULSE/Assistant/ (module.ts + checks/) to the repo.

Bug 2 — PULSE/PULSE.toml hardcodes the author's DA name

.claude/PAI/PULSE/PULSE.toml:41:

[da]
primary = "kai"
pulse.ts resolves the primary as config.primary || registry.primary, so this
hardcoded kai overrides the user's own USER/DA/_registry.yaml. Any user 
whose DA isn't named "kai" gets:
warn  No DA_IDENTITY.yaml for "kai"
warn  Assistant started (degraded)  primary: kai

Fix: ship PULSE.toml without a hardcoded primary (let it fall through to
registry.primary), or use a placeholder substituted at install time.

Impact

Every new v5 user with a non-"kai" DA hits an empty/degraded Pulse Assistant.
Both fixes are small; Bug 2 is a one-line change.

Environment

- Repo main @ 2fde1bb, macOS, Bun, fresh v5.0.0 install.

[mfullbrook]

Independent confirmation on a v5.0.0 install — same fingerprint on both root causes. A few extra data points in case they help with prioritizing.

Bug 1 (missing PULSE/Assistant/) — confirmed it's absent from the published tree, not just uncommitted locally. git/trees/main?recursive=1 shows the shipped PULSE/ top level as MenuBar/, Observability/, Performance/, VoiceServer/, checks/, lib/, modules/, plus PULSE.toml / pulse.ts / etc. — no Assistant/ anywhere. Meanwhile PULSE.toml ships four enabled jobs pointing into it (assistant-heartbeat|tasks|diary|growth → bun run Assistant/checks/*.ts). Runtime:

error: Module not found "Assistant/checks/heartbeat.ts"
warn  Assistant module not available

Knock-on effect worth flagging: the entire DA scheduling/reminder feature is dead, not just the empty dashboard card. PAI/TOOLS/DASchedule.ts (the user-facing "remind me…" CLI) writes tasks to PULSE/state/da/scheduled-tasks.jsonl, but nothing in the shipped tree reads that file — the intended consumer is the missing Assistant/checks/tasks.ts. So tasks can be created but will never fire.

Circuit-breaker gotcha for whoever fixes this: the four jobs reach consecutiveFailures: 3 and Pulse then permanently skips them. Restoring the module won't un-trip an already-affected install — users will also need to restart Pulse (or reset consecutiveFailures in state/state.json).

Bug 2 (PULSE.toml:41 primary = "kai") — confirmed the hardcoded value ships. One nuance: on any install that also has Bug 1, the module never loads, so the No DA_IDENTITY.yaml for "kai" degraded path isn't even reached. In other words, fixing Bug 1 will expose Bug 2 for every user whose DA isn't named kai — worth fixing both in the same pass.

Optional hardening beyond the two fixes: Pulse could skip (or warn-once on) [da] jobs when the module is absent, rather than letting them circuit-break, so a partial release degrades gracefully.

Thanks for the thorough writeup — saved me the diagnosis.