> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.kraken.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Heartbeat

> Automatic heartbeat messages to verify the connection is alive

<div className="api-banner">
  <span className="api-protocol ws">WSS</span>
  <span className="api-detail">ws.kraken.com/v2</span>
  <span className="api-tag">heartbeat</span>
</div>

The `heartbeat` channel provides a mechanism to verify that the connection is alive.

Heartbeat messages are sent approximately once every second **in the absence of any other channel updates**.

There is no option to directly request a `heartbeat` subscription, the heartbeats will be automatically generated on subscription to any channel.

## Update

The channel name is the indicator of a heartbeat, there is no other data in the heartbeat payload.

<ResponseField name="channel" type="string">
  Value: `heartbeat`
</ResponseField>

<Panel>
  <CodeGroup>
    ```json Example: Heartbeat theme={null}
    {
        "channel": "heartbeat"
    }
    ```
  </CodeGroup>
</Panel>