Simple Functions
GLOSSARY/ANALYSIS

Signal

A signal is any piece of new information that could affect a thesis — a news article, a price movement, a data release, a user note, or an external webhook event. The agent evaluates signals against the causal tree.

CLI:sf signals

Signals in the SimpleFunctions System

A signal is the raw input to the evaluation cycle. Think of signals as the information stream that the agent processes to keep your thesis current.

Types of Signals

  1. News signals: Articles and reports picked up by the search service (Tavily). Automatically generated.
  2. Price signals: Significant price movements in linked markets. Automatically detected.
  3. User notes: Information you manually feed to the agent ("I spoke with an industry insider who said...")
  4. Webhook signals: External data pushed to the agent via webhooks (automated data feeds, custom monitors)

Signal Processing

Not all signals are equal. The agent evaluates each signal through this pipeline:

  1. Deduplication: Is this the same information we already processed? (Uses idempotency keys)
  2. Node mapping: Which causal tree node does this affect? If none, the signal is noise.
  3. Impact assessment: Does this signal change the node probability? By how much?
  4. Evaluation trigger: If the impact is significant (>2% probability change), trigger a full evaluation cycle.

Signal Quality

High-quality signals:

  • Come from authoritative sources (official data, established news outlets)
  • Map cleanly to a specific causal node
  • Provide quantitative information (numbers, not just sentiment)

Low-quality signals:

  • Are speculative or opinion-based
  • Don't map to any node (noise)
  • Duplicate information already processed

Example

sf signals --thesis recession-2026 --last 24h

Recent signals:
ID      Type       Source    Node    Impact    Status
sig-01  news       tavily   n1.1    +7pt      consumed
sig-02  price      kalshi   —       —         consumed
sig-03  news       tavily   n2.2    +4pt      consumed
sig-04  news       tavily   —       noise     filtered
sig-05  user_note  manual   n3.1    +2pt      consumed
sig-06  news       tavily   n1.1    dup       filtered

6 signals received, 4 consumed, 2 filtered (1 noise, 1 duplicate)

Related Terms

Causal Tree

A causal tree is a structured probabilistic model that breaks down a complex event into a hierarchy of independent, verifiable sub-conditions. Each node has a probability, and the tree computes the overall probability of the root event.

Evaluation Cycle

An evaluation cycle is the automated process by which the agent reviews new signals, updates causal tree probabilities, recalculates edge, and determines whether any strategy conditions are met.

Heartbeat

The heartbeat is the automated monitoring engine that periodically scans for new information, runs evaluation cycles, and triggers strategy actions. It keeps your thesis alive and responsive 24/7.

Webhook

A webhook is an HTTP callback that sends real-time notifications to your application when specific events occur — such as price alerts, strategy triggers, or thesis confidence changes.

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