# Setup Health Cron

> This skill should be used when the user asks to "setup daily health cron", "schedule mac health check", "automate daily report", "cron my mac check", or mentions scheduling the mac-guardian report. Installs a user-level launchd agent (preferred on macOS) that runs daily-health-report at a user-specified time, with cron as an optional fallback.

- Skill: `dennisonbertram/setup-health-cron` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dennisonbertram/setup-health-cron`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dennisonbertram/setup-health-cron/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: dennisonbertram (https://skillmd.com/u/dennisonbertram)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dennisonbertram/setup-health-cron

---


# setup-health-cron

Schedules the `daily-health-report` skill to run automatically at a user-specified local time. Prefers launchd on macOS. Falls back to cron only when explicitly requested.

## When to invoke

Trigger on phrases like: "setup daily health cron", "schedule mac health check", "automate daily report", "cron my mac check".

## Inputs

- **Time of day** (local). Default `09:00`. Accept `HH:MM` in 24-hour form.
- **Mode**: `launchd` (default) or `cron`.

## Procedure (launchd — default)

1. Confirm with the user before writing anything:
   "Ready to install `~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist` to run daily at HH:MM. Proceed?" Abort on "no".

2. Resolve plugin root: prefer `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}`. Otherwise, derive it from the current skill path.

3. Build the plist at `~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist`:

   ```xml
   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
     "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
   <plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
     <key>Label</key><string>com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily</string>
     <key>ProgramArguments</key>
     <array>
       <string>/bin/bash</string>
       <string>-lc</string>
       <string>PLUGIN_ROOT="<ABSOLUTE PATH>"; bash "$PLUGIN_ROOT/scripts/render.sh" &amp;&amp; bash "$PLUGIN_ROOT/scripts/open-report.sh"</string>
     </array>
     <key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
     <dict>
       <key>Hour</key><integer>HH</integer>
       <key>Minute</key><integer>MM</integer>
     </dict>
     <key>StandardOutPath</key><string>/tmp/mac-guardian.daily.out.log</string>
     <key>StandardErrorPath</key><string>/tmp/mac-guardian.daily.err.log</string>
     <key>RunAtLoad</key><false/>
   </dict>
   </plist>
   ```

   Substitute `<ABSOLUTE PATH>`, `HH`, `MM`. `Hour` is 0–23. `Minute` is 0–59.

4. Load it:
   ```
   launchctl bootout gui/$UID ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist 2>/dev/null || true
   launchctl bootstrap gui/$UID ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist
   launchctl enable gui/$UID/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily
   ```

5. Verify:
   ```
   launchctl print gui/$UID/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily | head -30
   ```

6. Note: the launchd agent runs `render.sh` and `open-report.sh` only. It does not re-run the collection skills automatically — collection requires Claude Code. Tell the user explicitly:
   > "The scheduled job renders and opens a dashboard from whatever JSON has accumulated in ~/.mac-guardian/data. To refresh data, run `/mac-health` manually."

7. Print the uninstall instructions:
   ```
   launchctl bootout gui/$UID ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist
   rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist
   ```

## Procedure (cron — only when asked)

1. Confirm with the user before editing crontab.
2. Show the line that will be appended:
   ```
   MM HH * * * /bin/bash -lc 'bash "<PLUGIN_ROOT>/scripts/render.sh" && bash "<PLUGIN_ROOT>/scripts/open-report.sh"' >>/tmp/mac-guardian.cron.log 2>&1
   ```
3. Append via `(crontab -l 2>/dev/null; echo "<line>") | crontab -`.
4. Print uninstall instructions: `crontab -e` and remove the line, or `crontab -l | grep -v mac-guardian | crontab -`.

## Output contract

Write a JSON envelope to `~/.mac-guardian/data/setup-health-cron-<ISOdate>.json`:

```json
{
  "skill": "setup-health-cron",
  "timestamp": "...",
  "severity": "ok",
  "summary": "Installed launchd agent for 09:00 daily",
  "findings": [],
  "raw": { "mode": "launchd", "time": "09:00", "plist_path": "/Users/.../com.dennisonbertram.mac-guardian.daily.plist" }
}
```

## Handoff

- On direct invocation, also render a mini HTML via
  `bash ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/render-single.sh setup-health-cron`.

## Safety

- Must prompt for confirmation before writing a launchd plist or modifying crontab.
- Never use `sudo` — the agent is user-level (`gui/$UID`).
- If the plist already exists, prompt before overwriting.
- On any failure during bootstrap/enable, restore the previous plist (if any) and report the error.