status: complete audience: both chapter: 03 last_updated: 2026-04 contributors: [alexwill87, claude-cockpit] lang: en

3.15 -- Crons: scheduled automations

Context

A reactive agent responds when you talk to it. A proactive agent acts without you asking, at defined times.

Crons are the mechanism for proactivity. A cron = a scheduled action that triggers at a fixed time. The morning briefing at 7am. The evening recap at 6pm. Email triage every 2 hours. The heartbeat that verifies everything is working.

The 4 essential crons

1. Morning briefing

The most important. Full details in section 3.16.

openclaw cron add --name "briefing-matin" \
  --schedule "0 7 * * 1-5" \
  --prompt "Genere mon briefing du matin selon le format defini dans CONSTITUTION.md"

Trigger: Monday to Friday, 7:00am.

2. Evening recap

Summary of the day. What was done, what remains, what changed.

openclaw cron add --name "recap-soir" \
  --schedule "0 18 * * 1-5" \
  --prompt "Resume de la journee : decisions prises, taches completees, 
  points en attente. Mets a jour MEMORY.md avec ce qui doit etre retenu."

Trigger: Monday to Friday, 6:00pm.

The evening recap connects to the next day's briefing. What the recap captures in the evening, the briefing presents in the morning.

3. Email triage

Periodic classification of incoming emails.

openclaw cron add --name "triage-email" \
  --schedule "0 9,13,17 * * 1-5" \
  --prompt "Trie les emails recus depuis le dernier triage. 
  Classe en urgent/a-traiter/informatif. 
  Notifie-moi uniquement s'il y a des urgents."

Trigger: 3 times per day (9am, 1pm, 5pm).

Note: don't triage every 30 minutes. Email is not chat. 3 times per day is enough for the vast majority of contexts.

4. Heartbeat

Verification that the agent and its connections are working.

openclaw cron add --name "heartbeat" \
  --schedule "0 6 * * *" \
  --prompt "Verifie que toutes les connexions sont actives 
  (calendrier, email, taches). Signale uniquement les problemes."

Trigger: every day, 6:00am (before the briefing).

The heartbeat is silent when everything is working. It only notifies you if something is broken.

Configuration

Cron syntax

openclaw cron add --name "[nom]" \
  --schedule "[expression cron]" \
  --prompt "[instruction pour l'agent]"

Common cron expressions:

Managing crons

openclaw cron list              # See all active crons
openclaw cron pause [nom]       # Pause
openclaw cron resume [nom]      # Reactivate
openclaw cron remove [nom]      # Delete
openclaw cron logs [nom]        # View execution logs

Start with ONE cron only

Steinberg's rule applied to crons: start with one. The morning briefing.

Why: - You validate that the cron mechanism works - You verify that the prompt produces a useful result - You adjust the time and content before adding others - A misconfigured cron running 3 times per day is 3 times more noise than one

Recommended order of addition:

Week 1: morning briefing
Week 2: evening recap (if briefing is solid)
Week 3: email triage (if email is connected)
Week 4: heartbeat

Step by step

1. Create the "briefing-matin" cron with the prompt from section 3.16
2. Verify the first briefing the next morning
3. Adjust the prompt if the result is not satisfactory
4. Live with it for 5 days
5. Add the next cron only when the first one is stable

Common mistakes

Too many crons from the start: 8 crons on day one. You're drowning in notifications. Start with 1.

Crons too frequent: Email triage every 15 minutes. The agent consumes tokens for near-identical results. Reduce the frequency.

Cron prompts too vague: "Do a check-in." A check-in on what? From which sources? What format? Be as specific in a cron prompt as in a direct interaction.

Not reading the logs: A cron failing silently for 2 weeks. Check the logs regularly, at least in the beginning.

No heartbeat: Everything works until the day your API token expires and the briefing is empty. The heartbeat catches problems before they impact your work.

Verification

• [ ] At least 1 active cron (morning briefing recommended)
• [ ] The cron prompt is precise and tested
• [ ] The trigger time matches your rhythm
• [ ] Logs are accessible and verified
• [ ] No more than 2 active crons in the first week
• [ ] Heartbeat planned (even if added later)