> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.aloop.icustomer.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.aloop.icustomer.ai/pulse/families.md).

# Families

The three pulse families: Opportunity, Stall, and Milestone, and what each one asks of you.

Every pulse is stamped with exactly one family, and the family tells you at a glance why the moment matters:

* **Opportunity** asks you to act on something good, before the window closes.
* **Stall** means an edge of the loop cannot advance, and the pulse brings the reason and the remedy with it. Work waiting on your call is a stall whose remedy is your click; something going wrong is a stall with its root cause attached.
* **Milestone** marks a first worth seeing. No action needed; worth ten seconds.

Every stall names the [loop edge](/getting-started/the-loop.md) it fired from, so the pulse never just says "blocked": it says which step, what is in the way, and what would clear it. The full catalog, with the five stall edges and examples per family, lives in [Pulse families](/reference/pulse-families.md) in Reference.

## Families in the app

In the app, the queue is also sorted by tabs: **Needs you**, **Activation**, **Digest**, **Setup**, **Alert**, **Inbound**, and **Insight**. Tabs group items by what they are and where they came from; the family says why a pulse matters. One pulse carries both, so a failed sync sits in the Alert tab as a Stall, and a hot reply sits in Inbound as an Opportunity.

## How families shape behavior

Families and severity tiers are the queue's two filters. A pulse's family also sets expectations for its mode: a **decide** pulse carries a pending action and can interrupt; an **inform** pulse never interrupts, it folds into the [daily digest](/pulse/daily-digest.md) and is measured by whether it was worth reading.

Families are stamped by the system, never hand-assigned, so filtering by family always means the same thing, in the app, in email, and in Slack. Per-family delivery preferences are covered in [Delivery](/pulse/delivery.md); acting on a pulse is covered in [Acting on a pulse](/pulse/acting.md).


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