scheduler

name	scheduler
category	system
description	Create, cancel, and manage periodic (cron) and one-shot (deferred) background tasks. Use when the user wants to schedule recurring work (daily summaries, cleanups), run something at a specific time, set reminders, or manage existing scheduled tasks. Keywords: schedule, cron, timer, remind, recurring, periodic, deferred, at, every, cancel.
metadata	{"author":"zeph","version":"1.0"}

Scheduler

Use schedule_periodic for recurring cron tasks, schedule_deferred for one-shot tasks at a specific future time, and cancel_task to remove a scheduled task.

Create a daily memory cleanup (cron)

{"name": "daily-cleanup", "cron": "0 0 3 * * *", "kind": "memory_cleanup"}

Create a weekly skill refresh (cron)

{"name": "weekly-skill-refresh", "cron": "0 0 2 * * SUN", "kind": "skill_refresh"}

Run a custom task at a specific time (deferred)

{"name": "follow-up", "run_at": "2026-03-03T18:00:00Z", "kind": "custom", "task": "check if PR was merged and notify"}

{"name": "reminder-call-home", "run_at": "+2h", "kind": "custom", "task": "Remind the user to call home"}

{"name": "standup-reminder", "run_at": "in 30 minutes", "kind": "custom", "task": "Remind the user: standup in 5 minutes"}

{"name": "eod-summary", "run_at": "today 18:00", "kind": "custom", "task": "generate end-of-day summary"}

Cancel a scheduled task

{"name": "daily-cleanup"}

Cron Expression Reference

Both standard 5-field (min hour day month weekday) and 6-field (sec min hour day month weekday) expressions are accepted. When 5 fields are given, seconds default to 0.

Field ranges

Field	Position (6-field)	Allowed Values	Special Characters
Seconds	1	0-59	* , - /
Minutes	2	0-59	* , - /
Hours	3	0-23	* , - /
Day of Month	4	1-31	* , - /
Month	5	1-12 or JAN-DEC	* , - /
Day of Week	6	0-7 or SUN-SAT	* , - /

Common cron examples

Expression (6-field)	Meaning
0 0 * * * *	Every hour at :00
0 */15 * * * *	Every 15 minutes
0 0 3 * * *	Daily at 03:00
0 30 9 * * MON-FRI	Weekdays at 09:30
0 0 2 * * SUN	Every Sunday at 02:00
0 0 0 1 * *	First day of every month at midnight
0 0 8,12,18 * * *	At 08:00, 12:00, and 18:00 daily

Special characters

• * — all values in the field
• , — list separator (e.g. MON,WED,FRI)
• - — range (e.g. 9-17 for hours 9 through 17)
• / — step (e.g. */15 for every 15 units, 0/30 for 0 and 30)

Built-in Kinds

memory_cleanup, skill_refresh, health_check, update_check, custom.

For custom kind, the task field controls what happens at execution time. At the scheduled moment it is injected as Execute the following scheduled task now: <task> into the agent turn.

Two patterns for task:

1. Reminder for the user — write what the user should be notified about. The agent will relay the message to the user without acting on it.

   "task": "Remind the user to call home"
   "task": "Remind the user: standup in 5 minutes"
   

2. Action for the agent — write an instruction for the agent to execute. The agent will perform the action autonomously at the scheduled time.

   "task": "Check if PR #42 was merged and notify the user"
   "task": "Generate an end-of-day summary and send it"
   "task": "Run memory cleanup and report results"
   

Rule: if the user says "remind me to X", use pattern 1 (Remind the user to X). If the user says "do X at time", use pattern 2 (X).

run_at Formats

run_at accepts any of the following (must resolve to a future time):

Format	Example
ISO 8601 UTC	2026-03-03T18:00:00Z
ISO 8601 naive (treated as UTC)	2026-03-03T18:00:00
Relative shorthand	+2m, +1h, +30s, +1d, +1h30m
Natural language	in 5 minutes, in 2 hours, today 14:00, tomorrow 09:30

Validation Rules

• run_at must resolve to a future time.
• cron must be a valid 5 or 6-field cron expression.
• Task names must be unique. Scheduling with an existing name updates the task.