Bash Notification Reminders

One-shot notification reminders

For native Shell/Daemon jobs, rely on their completion notification; do not add a competing timer. Only for async work without a reliable completion wake, use system(action="sleep", input={"reason": "check pending work", "force": false, "delay": 240}, reasoning="last-resort wake") as a last-resort one-shot alarm; system-manual owns its detail.

For an already-authorized external workflow requiring the cron channel, schedule the writer below for the chosen future time. Running it now publishes now; it does not create a timer. A reminder writes one complete notification envelope to <agent-workdir>/.notification/cron.json; it is not a recurring scheduler, human notification, or guarantee across process death and sleep. After acting, dismiss the cron channel:

notification(action="dismiss_channel",
             input={"channel": "cron", "force": null, "reason": null},
             reasoning="the cron reminder is handled")

Use a custom writer only when the built-in wake is unsuitable. Do not use it for a human-facing message, a delay that must survive reboot (use launchd/systemd/crontab), or frequent polling. Set one sane wake and rest.

Envelope

A producer that cannot import the helper must still write the full shape:

{
  "header": "Cron reminder: check pending work",
  "icon": "⏰",
  "priority": "normal",
  "published_at": "2026-05-18T06:42:00Z",
  "data": {
    "source": "cron-reminder",
    "message": "Background work is still pending.",
    "todo": "Check the named job and inspect its output.",
    "reminder_id": "task-followup-2026-05-18T06-42"
  }
}

Keep published_at as a UTC ISO timestamp and make reminder_id stable enough to recognize duplicates. message says what changed; todo says the concrete next action. Write through a temporary sibling and rename atomically:

import json, os, pathlib
from datetime import datetime, timezone

agent = pathlib.Path(os.environ["AGENT_DIR"])
notification = agent / ".notification"
notification.mkdir(exist_ok=True)
payload = {
    "header": "Cron reminder: check pending work", "icon": "⏰",
    "priority": "normal",
    "published_at": datetime.now(timezone.utc).strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ"),
    "data": {"source": "cron-reminder", "message": "Work is pending.",
             "todo": "Check job status and output.",
             "reminder_id": os.environ.get("REMINDER_ID", "cron-reminder")},
}
target = notification / "cron.json"
tmp = target.with_suffix(".json.tmp")
tmp.write_text(json.dumps(payload, ensure_ascii=False) + "\n", encoding="utf-8")
tmp.replace(target)

Rest and wake

Before resting: record the state/check target in pad. For a custom cron wake, save the writer as an authorized task script and schedule it once at the chosen time using scheduled work; do not execute it immediately and expect a delay. Then end the turn and rely on the event. On wake, handle the reminder, inspect the named job, and dismiss cron. A detached sleep writer can be lost if the process or machine stops; use the scheduled-work reference for longer or recurring delays.