Scheduled Tasks

Overview

This skill manages Agentara scheduled tasks via the REST API at http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs.

A scheduled task has two parts:

• What: an instruction (natural language prompt sent to the agent)
• When: a schedule object with one of at/delay (one-shot) or pattern/every (recurring), plus optional limit and immediately

session_id: contextual vs independent

• Independent (default): omit session_id. Each trigger creates a new session — the agent has no memory of previous runs. Suitable for most cronjobs.
• Contextual: pass a fixed session_id (generate one via python3 -c "import uuid; print(uuid.uuid4())"). All triggers share the same conversation session — the agent can reference previous runs. Use this only when continuity matters (e.g. daily standup that tracks progress over time).

Workflow

Step 1: Understand intent

Ask or infer what the user wants:

Step 2: Determine whether session_id is needed

Ask yourself: does this task need to remember context across triggers?

• "Summarize today's news" → No. Each run is self-contained. Omit session_id.
• "Check project progress and compare with yesterday" → Yes. The agent needs prior context. Generate a fixed session_id.

If unsure, ask the user: "Should each trigger run independently, or do you need them to share conversation history?"

Step 3: Execute

Use Bash to run curl commands against the API. All examples below use localhost:1984.

IMPORTANT: Never pipe write operations (POST/PUT/DELETE) through jq. If jq fails to parse the response, the curl request has still been sent and executed server-side. Retrying the command will create duplicates or cause unintended side effects. Only use | jq . for read operations (GET). For write operations, output the raw response directly.

API Reference

List all scheduled tasks

curl -s http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs | jq .

jq is safe here because GET is read-only. Never use | jq . on POST/PUT/DELETE commands.

Create — independent (no session_id)

Most common case. Each trigger starts a fresh session.

Cron pattern (every day at 9 AM):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Summarize today'''s top tech news",
    "schedule": { "pattern": "0 9 * * *" }
  }'

Interval (every 30 minutes):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Check all services are healthy",
    "schedule": { "every": 1800000 }
  }'

Cron + limit (every Friday 6 PM, max 10 times):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Generate weekly project report",
    "schedule": { "pattern": "0 18 * * 5", "limit": 10 }
  }'

Interval + immediately (every hour, first run right now):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Sync upstream repository changes",
    "schedule": { "every": 3600000, "immediately": true }
  }'

Delay (one-shot after 10 minutes):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Remind me to review the report",
    "schedule": { "delay": 600000 }
  }'

All schedule options (cron + interval + limit + immediately):

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Run full regression test suite",
    "schedule": {
      "pattern": "0 2 * * *",
      "every": 86400000,
      "limit": 30,
      "immediately": true
    }
  }'

Create — contextual (with session_id)

First generate a UUID:

SESSION_ID=$(python3 -c "import uuid; print(uuid.uuid4())")

Then pass it. All triggers will share this session's conversation history:

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"session_id\": \"$SESSION_ID\",
    \"instruction\": \"Check project progress, compare with yesterday, and flag blockers\",
    \"schedule\": { \"pattern\": \"0 9 * * 1-5\" }
  }"

Update a scheduled task

PUT with the scheduler ID in the path. Omit session_id to keep existing; pass null for independent mode or a UUID for contextual.

curl -s -X PUT http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs/<scheduled-task-id> \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "instruction": "Updated instruction here",
    "schedule": { "pattern": "0 8 * * *" }
  }'

Delete a scheduled task

curl -s -X DELETE http://localhost:1984/api/cronjobs/<scheduled-task-id>

Schedule field reference

Note: for one-shot, use exactly one of at or delay; no other schedule fields are allowed. delay is normalized to at when stored.

Guided interaction

When the user describes a task in natural language:

1. Extract the instruction — what the agent should do.
2. Extract the schedule — map natural language to schedule fields:
   • "Only once at 2026-03-11 09:00:00" → { "at": 1773190800000 }, resolve timestamp by running Python code: import datetime; print(int(datetime.datetime(2026, 3, 11, 9, 0, 0).timestamp() * 1000))
   • "10 minutes later" / "in 10 minutes" → { "delay": 600000 } (600000 ms = 10 min)
   • "every day at 9am" → { "pattern": "0 9 * * *" }
   • "every 30 minutes" → { "every": 1800000 }
   • "only 5 times" → add "limit": 5
   • "start now" / "run immediately" → add "immediately": true
3. Decide session_id — does the task need cross-trigger context? If yes, generate a UUID. If no (most cases), omit it.
4. Confirm the mapped parameters with the user before executing.
5. After execution, show the response (especially the id for future update/delete).

When modifying an existing task, always use Update (PUT) instead of delete + create. This preserves the task ID and is a single operation. Only use delete when the user explicitly wants to remove a task entirely.

When deleting or updating, first list existing tasks so the user can pick which one to modify.