| name | openclaw-cron-maintenance |
| description | Use when maintaining OpenClaw cron-managed bridge jobs such as Telegram Digest or AgentMail Inbox, especially when updating schedules, fixing sync-openclaw-cron-jobs.sh, validating jobs.json, or recovering from a hanging `openclaw cron list` / cron CLI path. |
OpenClaw Cron Maintenance
Use this skill for server-side cron maintenance around bridge-style jobs (telethon-digest, agentmail-email, similar).
Core rule
On this deployment, do not trust openclaw cron list/add/remove as the primary path.
The gateway CLI can hang while the scheduler and cron store still work.
Prefer:
- inspect the cron store JSON directly
- patch only the managed jobs for one prefix
- back up the store before changes
- restart
openclaw-openclaw-gateway-1
- validate via
jobs.json + container health
Default cron-store locations
Check in this order:
/opt/openclaw/config/cron/jobs.json/home/deploy/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json
Allow override with OPENCLAW_CRON_STORE.
Safe workflow
- Read the managed prefix and intended schedules from the repo sync script.
- Read the current cron store and extract only jobs matching that prefix.
- Back up the store to
jobs.json.bak-<unix_ts>.
- Replace only the managed jobs for that prefix.
- Preserve other jobs untouched.
- Restart
openclaw-openclaw-gateway-1.
- Wait until the gateway returns to
healthy.
- Validate the store contains the expected names,
schedule.expr, and enabled=true.
Useful checks
Check gateway/container health:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa "$OPENCLAW_HOST" \
'docker ps --format "table {{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}" | grep -E "openclaw-openclaw-gateway-1|telethon-digest-cron-bridge|agentmail-email-bridge"'
Inspect cron store:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa "$OPENCLAW_HOST" \
'sudo cat /opt/openclaw/config/cron/jobs.json 2>/dev/null || sudo cat /home/deploy/.openclaw/cron/jobs.json'
When editing sync scripts
- Keep them idempotent.
- Patch only one managed prefix per script.
- Preserve existing
id / createdAtMs when the same job name still exists.
- Recompute
nextRunAtMs.
- Restart the gateway after patching the store.
- Never rewrite unrelated cron jobs.
Validation target
After a successful change, confirm:
- gateway is
healthy
- bridge container is
Up
- managed jobs exist in
jobs.json
- expected cron expressions are present
- no unrelated jobs were removed
