Cron Hardening

Guidelines for reliable OpenClaw cron jobs: model pinning, absolute paths, timeouts, delivery config, and error recovery.

Reliable cron config learned through repeated failures. Follow these rules for every new cron.

1. PIN the model

Every cron that delivers to the user must explicitly set a fast model. The global default can get stuck on model resolution (MiniMax cold-start especially).

"model": "deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash"

Time-sensitive crons that need pinning:

• Expense check-ins (10am, 1:30pm, 10pm)
• Expense sync (9:30am)
• News briefings (7:30am, 3pm, 10pm)
• Investment check-in (Sat 10am) and sync (Sat 11am)
• Transport check-in (9am)

Non-time-sensitive crons (dashboard, backup, security audit) can use default model — delay is harmless.

2. Absolute paths only

Cron agentTurn payloads run in an isolated context. They cannot cd to the workspace first. Every command MUST use absolute paths.

WRONG:

cd /workspace && python3 scripts/sync.py

RIGHT:

/usr/bin/python3 /home/hobopi/.openclaw/workspace/scripts/sync-ledger-to-sheet.py

Preflight checks reject cd && python3 chains.

3. Timeouts

Cron type	Timeout	Reason
Expense check-in	300s (600s for 10pm)	May wait for Hobo reply
News briefing	600s	Web search + curation takes time
Expense sync	60s	Quick script, just needs to run
Investment sync	600s	Reads all ledger files
Dashboard gen	180s	Runs 3 scripts in sequence
Token tracker	300s	Heavy usage data parsing
Transport check-in	600s	Previous-day ask, may wait
Backup	300s	tar + gzip
Security audit	600s	Full healthcheck

4. Delivery config

For crons that deliver to Telegram, use explicit delivery:

"delivery": {
  "mode": "announce",
  "channel": "telegram",
  "to": "telegram:37134287"
}

mode: "none" for crons that don't need to notify the user (dashboard updates, token tracking).

5. Failure recovery

• Check lastRunStatus and consecutiveErrors on cron status
• lastDiagnostics shows the error phase: model-call-started = model resolution timeout
• Common fixes: pin model, bump timeout, check absolute paths
• After fixing, next scheduled run uses new config (no manual trigger needed)

6. maxConcurrentRuns

Set cron.maxConcurrentRuns in openclaw.json when multiple crons fire simultaneously:

"cron": { "maxConcurrentRuns": 2 }

Prevents Sunday 5am clash (security audit + hourly dashboard + expense check-in).

7. Failure alerts

"failureAlert": {
  "after": 2,
  "mode": "announce",
  "channel": "telegram",
  "to": "telegram:37134287"
}

Notifies Hobo after 2 consecutive failures. Default enabled.