cron ยท diff
v1.0 to v1.0
26 added, 0 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: cron
description: >-
Schedule, list, pause, resume, edit, or run the user's agentica cron jobs
with the cronjob tool. Use when asked to remind, schedule a recurring or
one-shot task, try a job now, or manage jobs that fire unattended.
metadata:
version: "1.0"
---
# Scheduled jobs
Use the `cronjob` tool. Do not edit crontab or `~/.agentica/cron/jobs.json` by
hand. The tool schema lists the actions; do not invent them.
A job runs in a **fresh session** with none of this conversation. The prompt
must be self-contained: goal, constraints, where things are, what to do when
blocked. A prompt that needs a follow-up question will stall unattended.
+ ## Waiting on something this session started? Not cron.
+
+ To learn when a training run, eval, build, or any `tmux`/`nohup` job finishes,
+ do not schedule a minute-level poll. Start a read-only watcher with
+ `execute(background=True)` that loops on the job's exit marker (see the
+ `execute` tool's tmux/nohup notes). It spends no tokens while it waits, and
+ its exit comes back to this session as a new message.
+
+ A cron monitor costs a full agent run per tick and cannot reach this session:
+ one production job polled a 37-hour training run every 6 minutes, 400+ times,
+ and kept polling for four days after the run had ended.
+
+ Cron is for work that must recur on a clock or outlive this session.
+
+ ## If a job watches for an end state, it must stop itself
+
+ Write the exit condition into the prompt: "when `<marker>` exists (or the
+ process is gone), report the result and pause this job (its own id) with the
+ cronjob tool". Without it the job keeps firing after there is nothing left to
+ watch.
+
+ A job's agent has the CLI's file, shell, web, memory and `cronjob` tools, and
+ no session of its own. It has no `list_agents` / `send_message` /
+ `ask_user_question`: do not write a prompt that tells it to message a session
+ or ask the user.
+
Jobs only fire on their schedule while the scheduler daemon is on. How the user
turns it on depends on the surface:
- **Interactive CLI:** they type `/cron daemon on`. You cannot type slash commands; tell them which one. `/cron` is also their surface for list / add / pause / run.
- **Gateway and other surfaces:** `cron.enabled` in `config.yaml` is a
deployment-level setting. You cannot toggle it from this conversation; tell
the user to ask whoever manages this deployment to enable it.
`action='run'` executes a job once now so you can show the result before
waiting for the schedule.