| name | Tool Description: CronCreate |
| description | Describes the CronCreate tool for enqueuing one-shot or recurring cron-based jobs with jitter and off-minute scheduling guidance |
| ccVersion | 2.1.144 |
| variables | ["CRON_DURABILITY_SECTION","IS_MONITOR_TOOL_ENABLED_FN","CRON_CREATE_TOOL_NAME","MONITOR_TOOL_NAME","CRON_DURABLE_RUNTIME_NOTE","CANCEL_TIMEFRAME_DAYS","CRON_DELETE_TOOL_NAME"] |
| allowed-tools | Read Write Edit Bash |
| license | BSD-3-Clause license |
| metadata | {"skill-author":"Lord1Egypt"} |
Schedule a prompt to be enqueued at a future time. Use for both recurring schedules and one-shot reminders.
Uses standard 5-field cron in the user's local timezone: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week. "0 9 * * *" means 9am local — no timezone conversion needed.
One-shot tasks (recurring: false)
For "remind me at X" or "at , do Y" requests — fire once then auto-delete.
Pin minute/hour/day-of-month/month to specific values:
"remind me at 2:30pm today to check the deploy" → cron: "30 14 <today_dom> <today_month> *", recurring: false
"tomorrow morning, run the smoke test" → cron: "57 8 <tomorrow_dom> <tomorrow_month> *", recurring: false
Recurring jobs (recurring: true, the default)
For "every N minutes" / "every hour" / "weekdays at 9am" requests:
"*/5 * * * *" (every 5 min), "0 * * * *" (hourly), "0 9 * * 1-5" (weekdays at 9am local)
Avoid the :00 and :30 minute marks when the task allows it
Every user who asks for "9am" gets 0 9, and every user who asks for "hourly" gets 0 * — which means requests from across the planet land on the API at the same instant. When the user's request is approximate, pick a minute that is NOT 0 or 30:
"every morning around 9" → "57 8 * * *" or "3 9 * * *" (not "0 9 * * *")
"hourly" → "7 * * * *" (not "0 * * * *")
"in an hour or so, remind me to..." → pick whatever minute you land on, don't round
Only use minute 0 or 30 when the user names that exact time and clearly means it ("at 9:00 sharp", "at half past", coordinating with a meeting). When in doubt, nudge a few minutes early or late — the user will not notice, and the fleet will.
${CRON_DURABILITY_SECTION}
${IS_MONITOR_TOOL_ENABLED_FN()?`
Not for live watching
${CRON_CREATE_TOOL_NAME} re-runs a prompt at fixed wall-clock intervals. To watch a log file, process, or command output and be notified the moment something changes, use the ${MONITOR_TOOL_NAME} tool instead — ${MONITOR_TOOL_NAME} streams events as they happen; cron polls on a schedule.
`:""}
Runtime behavior
Jobs only fire while the REPL is idle (not mid-query). ${CRON_DURABLE_RUNTIME_NOTE}The scheduler adds a small deterministic jitter on top of whatever you pick: recurring tasks fire up to 10% of their period late (max 15 min); one-shot tasks landing on :00 or :30 fire up to 90 s early. Picking an off-minute is still the bigger lever.
Recurring tasks auto-expire after ${CANCEL_TIMEFRAME_DAYS} days — they fire one final time, then are deleted. This bounds session lifetime. Tell the user about the ${CANCEL_TIMEFRAME_DAYS}-day limit when scheduling recurring jobs.
Returns a job ID you can pass to ${CRON_DELETE_TOOL_NAME}.
