Schedule Job Skill

Schedule tasks using cron with natural language time parsing.

Cron Format

code

* * * * * command
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ └─ day of week (0-7, 0 and 7 are Sunday)
│ │ │ └─── month (1-12)
│ │ └───── day of month (1-31)
│ └─────── hour (0-23)
└───────── minute (0-59)

Natural Language to Cron

Natural Language	Cron Expression
at 15:46	46 15 * * *
every morning at 9am	0 9 * * *
every monday at 8am	0 8 * * 1
every night at midnight	0 0 * * *
every hour	0 * * * *
every 30 minutes	/30 * * *
every weekday at 6pm	0 18 * * 1-5
every sunday at noon	0 12 * * 0
first of every month at 9am	0 9 1 * *
every 2 hours from 9am-9pm	0 9-21/2 * * *

Create Cron Entry

Basic Job

bash

(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "46 15 * * * cd $WORKSPACE && claude -p \"your task here\" --dangerously-skip-permissions >> /var/log/agent.log 2>&1") | crontab -

With Full Path

bash

WORKSPACE="/path/to/whatsapp-claude"
(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 9 * * * cd $WORKSPACE && claude -p \"check hacker news\" --dangerously-skip-permissions >> /var/log/agent.log 2>&1") | crontab -

List Current Jobs

bash

crontab -l

Remove a Job

bash

# Edit crontab interactively
crontab -e

# Or remove all jobs
crontab -r

Remove Specific Job

bash

# Remove job containing specific text
crontab -l | grep -v "specific text" | crontab -

Example Scheduled Tasks

Daily AI News Video (8am)

bash

(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 8 * * * cd /path/to/whatsapp-claude && claude -p \"research trending AI on X, create video, upload to YouTube\" --dangerously-skip-permissions >> /var/log/agent.log 2>&1") | crontab -

Weekly GitHub Recap (Sunday 6pm)

bash

(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 18 * * 0 cd /path/to/whatsapp-claude && claude -p \"create github recap video for this week\" --dangerously-skip-permissions >> /var/log/agent.log 2>&1") | crontab -

Hourly X Engagement (9am-9pm)

bash

(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "0 */2 9-21 * * cd /path/to/whatsapp-claude && claude -p \"check X mentions, reply to interesting ones\" --dangerously-skip-permissions >> /var/log/agent.log 2>&1") | crontab -

Log Rotation

Create /etc/logrotate.d/agent:

code

/var/log/agent.log {
    daily
    rotate 7
    compress
    missingok
    notifempty
}

Tips

•Always use absolute paths in cron
•Redirect output to log file for debugging
•Use 2>&1 to capture both stdout and stderr
•Test commands manually before scheduling
•Check cron daemon is running: service cron status
•View cron logs: grep CRON /var/log/syslog

Windows Alternative (Task Scheduler)

On Windows, use Task Scheduler instead:

powershell

# Create scheduled task
schtasks /create /tn "ClaudeTask" /tr "cd C:\path\to\whatsapp-claude && claude -p 'task'" /sc daily /st 09:00