levineam Cron Hygiene
Use this skill before creating, editing, or diagnosing scheduled automation.
Contract
The workflow is complete only when:
- new schedules are checked for duplicates, congestion, boundaries, and runtime cost before creation
- cron state is changed through the runtime's cron API or CLI, never by directly patching scheduler storage
- changed jobs are force-run or smoke-tested when possible
- run history and expected side effects are checked before success is claimed
- failures become explicit blockers or follow-up issues with an owner/action
Pre-creation gate
Before adding a job:
- Duplicate check. Does a similar job already exist?
- Frequency check. Is the cadence proportional to the value of the job?
- Boundary check. Avoid obvious contention slots such as exact hour or quarter-hour boundaries unless timing is essential.
- Congestion check. Avoid creating several heavyweight jobs in the same small time window.
- Runtime cost check. Use the cheapest model/tool surface that can do the job reliably.
- Target check. Confirm referenced scripts or commands exist in the live runtime workspace.
- Smoke check plan. Define how the first run and side effect will be proven.
Diagnosis checklist
When a job fails or stalls:
- inspect recent run history before editing the schedule
- distinguish scheduler failure from script failure
- look for repeated timeouts near the configured timeout limit
- check whether the job depends on a moved file, missing environment variable, unavailable CLI, or stale working directory
- prefer a narrow fix plus one force-run over broad schedule churn
Success proof
A cron job is not done because it exists. It is done when:
- the active definition points at live code
- one real run has completed or the runtime has accepted a scheduled next run
- the expected side effect appeared
- the verification result is recorded in the tracker or runbook