| name | cron-hygiene |
| version | 1.0 |
| category | openclaw-native |
| description | Audits cron-scheduled skills for session mode, token waste, and cost efficiency — and enforces concise-reply constraints on cron contexts |
| stateful | true |
| cron | 0 9 * * 1 |
cron-hygiene
Cron jobs running in main session mode inherit the full conversation history — re-sending thousands of tokens of context on every invocation. A cron running every 5 minutes in main session mode can turn a $10/month setup into $80+ (issue #20092). This skill audits all configured cron skills weekly and enforces hygiene standards.
Difference from context-budget-guard
context-budget-guard monitors live session token usage in real-time. cron-hygiene is about the structural problem: cron jobs that are architecturally wasteful because they're configured in the wrong session mode.
Cron Wakeup Behaviour
Runs every Monday at 09:00 (cron: "0 9 * * 1"). On each wakeup:
- Read the list of registered cron skills from OpenClaw config
- For each skill, check its session mode (
main vs isolated)
- Estimate cost impact: crons in
main mode × frequency × estimated context size
- Flag violations and surface recommendations
Hygiene rules
| Rule | Check | Severity |
|---|
| Session isolation | Cron skills should use isolated session mode | High |
| Reply conciseness | Cron output should be < 500 tokens | Medium |
| Frequency sanity | Crons running < 10min apart need justification | Medium |
| Dead crons | Cron skills with no state update in 7+ days | Low |
| Overlapping crons | Two skills scheduled at the same time | Low |
Weekly report format
Cron Hygiene Report — 2026-03-16
────────────────────────────────
5 crons audited | 2 violations | Est. monthly waste: $12.40
HIGH: persistent-memory-hygiene — runs in main session mode
Fix: add sessionMode: isolated to skill config
Est. savings: ~$8.20/month
MEDIUM: long-running-task-management — fires every 15min
Output not constrained (last run: 1,240 tokens)
Recommendation: add reply_token_limit: 200 to skill config
Remediation
To fix a main-session cron manually:
python3 audit.py --fix-session <skill-name>
This writes sessionMode: isolated to the skill's OpenClaw config entry.
