cron

name	cron
description	Anything related to scheduled or recurring tasks — checking what's set up, creating new ones, or modifying existing ones. Triggers on questions like "do we have any recurring tasks?", "is X scheduled?", or "set up a daily job".

Cron

Scheduled tasks post messages to Discord threads (or channels) on a cron schedule by calling the server's internal POST /message endpoint. The server picks them up and routes them to Claude Code like any other message.

There is no pre-built code — this skill describes exactly what to build. When asked to set up or rebuild the cron runner, generate the files described here.

Files to generate

Path	Purpose
.claude/skills/cron/cron-runner.js	Cron runner (Node.js ESM)

Install the dependency: npm install croner

Environment variables

Variable	Required	Default	Purpose
CC_DISCO_HOOK_PORT	no	9400	Port of the server's hook/message HTTP server

No Discord token needed — the cron runner talks to the server locally, not to Discord directly.

Behavioral spec

The cron runner is a single Node.js ESM script. It:

1. Reads cron.json from the repo root (parse failure → log and schedule nothing, don't crash)
2. Schedules each job using croner's Cron class
3. On each fire, POSTs to the server's /message endpoint:
   • POST http://127.0.0.1:${CC_DISCO_HOOK_PORT}/message
   • Body: { "threadId": job.threadId, "message": job.message }
   • Log errors but don't crash
4. On SIGHUP: stop all active crons, reload cron.json, reschedule

cron.json format

[
  { "schedule": "0 7 * * *", "threadId": "123456789012345678", "message": "⏰ Morning check-in" },
  { "schedule": "0 17 * * *", "threadId": "987654321098765432", "message": "⏰ Evening digest" }
]

• schedule — standard 5-field cron expression
• threadId — Discord thread or channel ID. If a channel ID is given, the server creates a new thread for each invocation. Use a thread ID to continue the same ongoing conversation.
• message — the prompt sent to Claude. Prefix it with context (e.g. ⏰ scheduled:) so Claude's response doesn't appear out of the blue in the thread.

How to get a thread or channel ID

Enable Developer Mode: User Settings → Advanced → Developer Mode, then right-click any thread or channel → Copy ID.

How it works with the server

The cron runner POSTs directly to the server's local HTTP endpoint — no Discord API calls, no bot token. The server resolves the target (creating a thread if needed), then spawns Claude exactly as it would for a user message. All bot message filtering is bypassed cleanly since the trigger never touches Discord.

Systemd service (optional)

Write ~/.config/systemd/user/cc-disco-cron.service:

[Unit]
Description=cc-disco cron runner
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=%h/cc-disco
EnvironmentFile=-%h/cc-disco/.env
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/environment
Environment=HOME=%h
Environment=PATH=%h/.local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node %h/cc-disco/.claude/skills/cron/cron-runner.js
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=15

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Then:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable cc-disco-cron
systemctl --user start cc-disco-cron

To reload jobs without restarting: kill -HUP $(systemctl --user show -p MainPID --value cc-disco-cron)

Ops

systemctl --user restart cc-disco-cron
systemctl --user status cc-disco-cron
journalctl --user -u cc-disco-cron -f

Acceptance criteria

1. node .claude/skills/cron/cron-runner.js starts without error, logs loaded job count
2. A job fires at its scheduled time, POSTs to localhost:9400/message, and Claude responds in the target thread
3. Sending SIGHUP reloads cron.json without restarting the process (logged)
4. Missing or malformed cron.json logs a warning but doesn't crash the runner
5. A job targeting a channel ID (not a thread) causes the server to create a new thread and respond there
6. Claude's response to a cron-triggered message does NOT itself trigger another Claude spawn (no feedback loop)