Casual Cron

Create Clawdbot cron jobs from natural language with strict run-guard rules. Use when: users ask to schedule reminders or messages (recurring or one-shot), especially via Telegram, or when they use /at or /every. Examples: 'Create a daily reminder at 8am', 'Remind me in 20 minutes', 'Send me a Telegram message at 3pm', '/every 2h'.

fork of @i-mw/cron-mastery

Audits

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Install

openclaw skills install casual-cron

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.

How It Works

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

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: <task>".
Always include --delete-after-run.
Always include --deliver --channel <channel> --to <destination>.

/every (repeating)

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

Confirmation

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

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>

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

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)