FAQ
How do I stop my AI agent from messaging users at night?
Section titled “How do I stop my AI agent from messaging users at night?”Put a gate in front of the send. createGate({ store, checks: defaultChecks({ quietHoursFloor: "high" }) }) runs the quietHours check against each user’s own time zone and window, and refuses a message whose priority is below the floor. The decision names the check and the reason. See Start.
How do I set quiet hours in each user’s own time zone?
Section titled “How do I set quiet hours in each user’s own time zone?”Give each user an IANA timezone (for example Europe/Istanbul) and a quietHours window such as { start: "22:00", end: "08:00" }. The window may cross midnight and is read in the user’s local time, not UTC. A schedule per weekday or per date is possible; see Checks.
How do I limit notifications per user per day?
Section titled “How do I limit notifications per user per day?”Pass dailyLimit to defaultChecks, or use checks.dailyBudget({ limit }) when you build your own list. The counter is keyed on the user’s local day, so it resets at that user’s midnight. commit increments it right before you send and returns false when a concurrent delivery took the last unit. weeklyBudget and monthlyBudget work the same way. See Decisions.
Does proactive-gate send the message?
Section titled “Does proactive-gate send the message?”No. It decides and returns a decision; your code sends. That keeps it free of delivery credentials, queues and servers.
What happens to a message that is held?
Section titled “What happens to a message that is held?”A refused decision carries nextAllowedAt, the earliest instant the check that refused would stop refusing, when that check can name one (quiet hours, snooze and the budgets can). Your code can wait until then and evaluate again; examples/hold-queue.mjs in the repository is a small in-memory queue that does this. A later check can still refuse at that instant.
Does it handle daylight-saving time?
Section titled “Does it handle daylight-saving time?”Quiet-hours windows and local-day budgets are computed with Intl.DateTimeFormat in the user’s IANA time zone. The conformance suite includes fixtures for a deleted spring-forward hour, a repeated autumn hour, 23-hour and 25-hour local days, and a zone that skipped a calendar day. See Spec and conformance.
Can I use it from Python or Go?
Section titled “Can I use it from Python or Go?”Yes. pip install proactive-gate and go get github.com/Bubblegunn/proactive-gate/go install implementations that pass the same fixtures; the conformance table in the README shows the count for each. See Python.
How do I test my own policy in CI?
Section titled “How do I test my own policy in CI?”Write a fixture with your policy and expected outcomes and run npx proactive-gate replay --fixtures <dir>; it exits 1 when one fails. See Test your own policy.
How do I use it with Claude Code or another MCP client?
Section titled “How do I use it with Claude Code or another MCP client?”The repository includes an agent skill and a Claude Code plugin manifest, and the npm package includes both. npx proactive-gate mcp --policy proactive-gate.policy.json starts an MCP server over stdio with two tools, decide and explain. proactive-gate hook gates a Claude Code tool call. See Integrations.
How is it different from Cue, notifkit, tcpa-quiet-hours, Novu, Knock and Courier?
Section titled “How is it different from Cue, notifkit, tcpa-quiet-hours, Novu, Knock and Courier?”Cue and notifkit are self-hosted servers that also send; proactive-gate is a library that only decides. A measured comparison with counts and a run date is in proactive-gate vs Cue, vs notifkit and vs tcpa-quiet-hours. The hosted platforms are quoted from their documentation, not measured, in vs Novu, Knock and Courier.
Are the legal presets legal advice?
Section titled “Are the legal presets legal advice?”No. A preset is a reviewable default that lists its sources. The usTcpa preset encodes the federal calling-hours window only, not state rules.
Can I try it without installing anything?
Section titled “Can I try it without installing anything?”npx proactive-gate simulate replays a generated week with and without the gate, and the playground is a browser page on the same site.