Casual Cron

Create Clawdbot cron jobs from natural language. Supports one-shot and repeating schedules with safe run-guard rules.

Cron Run Guard (Hard Rules)

• When running inside a cron job: do NOT troubleshoot, do NOT restart gateway, and do NOT check time.
• Do NOT send acknowledgements or explanations.
• Output ONLY the exact message payload and then stop.

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How It Works

1. Agent detects scheduling intent from user message (or /at / /every command)
2. Parses: time, frequency, channel, destination, message
3. Builds openclaw cron add command with correct flags
4. Confirms parsed time, job name, and job id with user before executing

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Scheduling Rules

When a message starts with /at or /every, schedule via the CLI (NOT the cron tool API).

Use: openclaw cron add

/at (one-shot)

• If user gives a clock time (e.g., "3pm"), convert to ISO with offset computed for America/New_York on that date (DST-safe).
• Prefer relative times for near-term reminders (e.g., --at "20m").
• Use --session isolated --message "Output exactly: ".
• Always include --delete-after-run.
• Always include --deliver --channel --to .

/every (repeating)

• If interval: use --every "" (no timezone needed).
• If clock time: use --cron "" --tz "America/New_York".
• Use --session isolated --message "Output exactly: ".
• Always include --deliver --channel --to .

Confirmation

• Always confirm parsed time, job name, and job id with the user before finalizing.

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Command Reference

One-shot (clock time, DST-aware):

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Reminder example" \
  --at "2026-01-28T15:00:00-05:00" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Output exactly: <TASK>" \
  --deliver --channel telegram --to <TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID> \
  --delete-after-run

One-shot (relative time):

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Reminder in 20m" \
  --at "20m" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Output exactly: <TASK>" \
  --deliver --channel telegram --to <TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID> \
  --delete-after-run

Repeating (clock time, DST-aware):

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Daily 3pm reminder" \
  --cron "0 15 * * *" --tz "America/New_York" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Output exactly: <TASK>" \
  --deliver --channel telegram --to <TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID>

Repeating (interval):

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Every 2 hours" \
  --every "2h" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Output exactly: <TASK>" \
  --deliver --channel telegram --to <TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID>

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Configuration

| Setting | Value |

|---------|-------|

| Default timezone | America/New_York (DST-aware) |

| Default channel | telegram (override via CRON_DEFAULT_CHANNEL env var) |

| Supported channels | telegram, whatsapp, slack, discord, signal |

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Supported Patterns

Time Formats

| Input | Cron |

|-------|------|

| 8am | 0 8 * |

| 8:45pm | 45 20 * |

| noon | 0 12 * |

| midnight | 0 0 * |

| 14:30 | 30 14 * |

Frequencies

| Input | Behavior |

|-------|----------|

| daily / every day | Daily at specified time |

| weekdays / mon-fri | Mon-Fri at specified time |

| mondays / every monday | Weekly on Monday |

| hourly / every hour | Every hour at :00 |

| every 2 hours | 0 /2 |

| weekly | Weekly (defaults to Monday) |

| monthly | Monthly (1st of month) |