Cron Management

Cron Management

Crons are daemon-managed. They are stored in ${CTX_ROOT}/state/$CTX_AGENT_NAME/crons.json and dispatched by the cortextOS daemon. Crons survive agent restarts, context compactions, and daemon restarts automatically. You do NOT need to recreate them on session start.

Daemon crons are the only persistent scheduling path on this runtime. Session-local schedulers — anything that lives only inside the agent's process — die on restart and silently drop their work. Always register recurring or future-dated jobs via the bus commands below so the daemon owns dispatch.

Editing config.json.crons[] while the agent is running does NOT hot-reload — the daemon only re-reads config.json on agent boot. Mid-session changes go through bus add-cron / bus update-cron / bus remove-cron, which trigger an automatic scheduler reload.

Handling a Cron Fire

When a registered cron fires, the daemon injects a message into your session in this exact shape:

[CRON FIRED <iso-timestamp>] <cron-name>: <prompt>

Treat the inject as if the user just sent you <prompt>. Run it to completion. Then — mandatory — close the loop with update-cron-fire so the daemon's gap-detection knows you actually handled it (not just that the prompt was injected):

cortextos bus update-cron-fire <cron-name> --interval <interval>

<interval> matches the cron's schedule shorthand (6h, 30m, 1d) or the expected gap between fires for a 5-field expression. If you skip this step the daemon will eventually nudge you with a "cron seems stuck" reminder even though you handled it. The audit trail lives in state/<agent>/cron-state.json — the daemon trusts that file, so write to it on every fire.

One-shot crons (cron-expression form, see below) are the only exception: a one-shot removes itself at the end of its handler, so its last_fire never matters again.

On Session Start

Check that your crons are registered. Do not recreate them unless they are missing.

cortextos bus list-crons $CTX_AGENT_NAME

If a cron is missing from the list, add it:

cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME <name> <interval|cron-expr> "<prompt>"

Adding a Recurring Cron

Interval shorthand (s/m/h/d/w):

cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME heartbeat 6h "Read HEARTBEAT.md and follow its instructions."
cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME health-check 30m "Check system health and report anomalies."

5-field cron expression (minute hour dom month dow):

cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME morning-report "0 9 * * 1-5" "Generate and send the daily analytics report."
cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME weekly-summary "0 17 * * 5" "Compile and deliver the weekly summary."

The daemon reloads automatically after add-cron. Confirm with list-crons.

Updating a Cron

# Change the schedule
cortextos bus update-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME heartbeat --interval 4h

# Update the prompt
cortextos bus update-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME heartbeat --prompt "New prompt text."

# Disable (stops firing without removing it)
cortextos bus update-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME heartbeat --enabled false

# Re-enable
cortextos bus update-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME heartbeat --enabled true

Removing a Cron

cortextos bus remove-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME <name>

One-Shot Reminder via Cron Expression

There is no daemon-side fire_at (yet). The pattern for "fire once at a specific time" is a future-dated 5-field cron expression plus a self-removing handler:

# Remind me on May 8 at 15:30 local time to send the weekly report.
# Format: minute hour day month dow
cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME may8-report "30 15 8 5 *" \
  'Send the weekly report. Then remove this cron: cortextos bus remove-cron '"$CTX_AGENT_NAME"' may8-report'

When the cron fires, your handler does the work AND removes the cron. If you forget the remove step the cron will fire again next year on May 8 — same reason update-cron-fire is mandatory for recurring crons: the loop only closes when you say it does.

If you need a reminder less than 24 hours out and the date math is awkward, use a short interval shorthand that you remove on first fire instead:

cortextos bus add-cron $CTX_AGENT_NAME quick-reminder 90m \
  'Check the soak run. Then: cortextos bus remove-cron '"$CTX_AGENT_NAME"' quick-reminder'

Testing a Cron Immediately

From the dashboard (/workflows/$CTX_AGENT_NAME/<name>), click Test Fire to inject the cron's prompt immediately. A 30-second cooldown prevents accidental rapid-fires.

Set manualFireDisabled: true on a cron definition to block dashboard test-fires (e.g. for crons that must only fire on schedule).

Checking Execution History

# All crons for this agent
cortextos bus get-cron-log $CTX_AGENT_NAME

# Filter to a specific cron
cortextos bus get-cron-log $CTX_AGENT_NAME <name>

Each log entry: ts, cron, status (fired/retried/failed), attempt, duration_ms, error.

Troubleshooting

Cron not firing:

1. cortextos bus list-crons $CTX_AGENT_NAME — confirm it is registered and not disabled.
2. cortextos bus get-cron-log $CTX_AGENT_NAME <name> — check for status: failed entries.
3. Check daemon log: ~/.cortextos/$CTX_INSTANCE_ID/logs/$CTX_AGENT_NAME/

crons.json corrupted:

• readCrons automatically falls back to crons.json.bak on parse failure. Usually self-healing.
• If both files are bad, re-add crons via add-cron or force re-migration: cortextos bus migrate-crons $CTX_AGENT_NAME --force

Scheduler retained stale schedule after reload:

• If a reload produces an empty schedule (transient corruption), the daemon keeps the last-good schedule in memory (lastGoodSchedule). Crons keep firing. Repair crons.json and the scheduler recovers automatically on the next reload.