Automation

Schedule Commands for AI Agents

Run tasks on autopilot. Morning briefings, health checks, data syncs — set them once and your agent handles them without manual intervention.

What Are Scheduled Commands?

Scheduled commands are agent tasks that run automatically on a time interval — like cron jobs, but instead of shell scripts, they trigger full Claude Code sessions. Your agent reads the command definition, executes the work, and logs the result.

They work best for recurring workflows with predictable inputs: pulling data, generating reports, running checks, archiving logs, or sending briefings. Any task you find yourself triggering manually every day is a candidate for scheduling.

Requires a persistent runtime

Scheduled commands only work when your agent runtime is always on. A laptop that sleeps won't fire 3 AM tasks. This is one of the primary reasons to run agents on a VPS or use a hosted agent service.

Common Scheduled Tasks

These are the most frequently configured schedules across production agent setups.

Morning Briefing

0 7 * * *

Summarize yesterday, surface priorities, check pending items

Evening Wrap-up

0 21 * * *

Archive session notes, update memory, plan next day

Health Check

0 */6 * * *

Verify agent responsiveness and system integrity

Data Sync

30 8 * * *

Pull external data sources, refresh dashboards

Weekly Review

0 9 * * 1

Retrospective, OKR check-in, priority reset

Log Rotation

0 0 * * 0

Archive old session logs, compress audit trails

Setup Steps

Define the command

Create a .md file in .claude/commands/ describing what the agent should do when the schedule fires.

Add the trigger

Set the runner

Point the schedule at your agent runtime (claude-code --dangerously-skip-permissions in headless mode, or a hosted agent).

Test manually

Run the command once by hand to confirm output before enabling the schedule.

Monitor execution

Scheduled runs append to .claude/logs/scheduled.log — tail it to verify the schedule fires correctly.

Configuration Example

Add schedules to your .claude/settings.json:

{
  "schedules": [
    {
      "name": "morning-briefing",
      "command": "/morning",
      "cron": "0 7 * * *",
      "enabled": true
    },
    {
      "name": "health-check",
      "command": "/health",
      "cron": "0 */6 * * *",
      "enabled": true
    }
  ]
}

The command field maps to a file in .claude/commands/. The agent reads the file and executes the instructions as a full session.

Monitoring Execution

Every scheduled run is logged. Check execution history with:

# Tail the scheduled task log
tail -f .claude/logs/scheduled.log

# View last 20 runs
tail -n 40 .claude/logs/scheduled.log

# Check for failures only
grep "FAILED" .claude/logs/scheduled.log

On success

Result written to log with timestamp and duration

On timeout

Run marked as timed-out after 5 minutes; next run still fires

On failure

Error captured, incident logged, optional alert sent

Want Schedules Pre-Configured?

Every managed agent plan comes with morning briefings, health checks, and daily syncs pre-configured and running on day one.

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