---
id: proactive-health
title: Proactive Health: when something quietly stops working
area: Going deeper
order: 94
summary: How Dex notices when meetings, search, planning, or contacts need attention — before the problem costs you time.
---

You shouldn't have to remember to check whether Dex is still doing its job.

Meeting notes can stop arriving. Search can fall behind. A planning file can lose the protection you thought it had. New contacts can stop appearing. Sometimes the machinery behind this still looks as though it is running, so the problem stays hidden until you need something that should have been there.

Proactive Health means you do not have to discover those problems by accident. When you start Dex, it may show a simple status. If everything is fine, Dex stays out of your way. If something newly serious needs attention, Dex tells you clearly and points you towards a safe investigation.

For the wider maintenance story — updates, repairs, and common problems — see [Updating, health, and troubleshooting](updating-troubleshooting.html).

## Running doesn't always mean working

A background task can be installed, start on time, and still fail before it produces anything useful. That is why Dex does not treat “it ran” as proof that “it worked.”

```split What a quiet failure can look like
What appears fine | What may actually be wrong
Meeting sync says it is running | New meeting notes are not arriving
Search is installed | Dex's memory is falling behind
A planning file still opens | It is outside the history or backup protection you expected
People and company features are enabled | New contacts are no longer appearing
```

Dex waits for a check it can trust. A green-looking schedule on its own is never enough for an all-clear.

The planning-file example is about the protection around the file, not whether it opens. Proactive Health does not promise to validate every file one by one.

## What Dex shows you

Proactive Health is designed to be calm rather than noisy:

- **All good.** Dex shows a short status and when it was last confirmed.
- **Still getting ready.** On first use, Dex is preparing its health status. It stays quiet until it has something reliable to say.
- **Only a newly serious problem interrupts.** It gets a clear message and a route to [`/dex-doctor`](updating-troubleshooting.html#health-dex-doctor).
- **The same problem is continuing.** It remains visible, but Dex does not interrupt you with the same alert every time you start a conversation.
- **Back to normal.** Recovery appears as a brief confirmation, not another alarm.

Less urgent or older information stays in the normal status instead of becoming an interruption. There is nothing new to configure and no notification settings to manage.

Here is the calm line beside the one-time interruption. The timestamps are illustrative; the wording is the exact session-start output:

```terminal The calm line and the newly-critical interrupt
🩺 Dex health: healthy — latest complete snapshot 2026-08-05T12:00:00+00:00.

--- 🚨 Dex health: critical ---
Latest complete snapshot: 2026-08-05T12:02:00+00:00
Run /dex-doctor for diagnosis and the fix.
---
```

## When something needs attention

Proactive Health notices the problem. **[Doctor investigates it](updating-troubleshooting.html#health-dex-doctor).**

Run [`/dex-doctor`](updating-troubleshooting.html#health-dex-doctor), or simply ask Dex to check what is wrong. Doctor explains what has stopped working, what that means for your work, and what to do next.

Checking is read-only: it does not change your files or connected accounts. Doctor can apply safe, reversible fixes and will ask before anything meaningful.

## Ask Dex to check itself

You do not need to remember any of the machinery behind this page. Use the prompt below whenever you want the plain-English version for your own setup.

```handoff
Check whether Dex is working properly on this computer. Tell me, in plain
English:

- what is working
- what needs attention and how it affects my work
- what you can safely fix, and what needs my approval

Do not assume that something worked just because it was scheduled or
started. If something serious needs attention, take me to `/dex-doctor`.
Do not change anything important without asking me first.
```

For more on jobs that run in the background, see [Automations that actually run](automations.html). For updates and the full Doctor workflow, see [Doctor in Updating, health, and troubleshooting](updating-troubleshooting.html#health-dex-doctor).