task-runner

What This Skill Does

The task-runner is a persistent, daemon-style task queue for OpenClaw. Unlike transient AI interactions, this skill creates a reliable infrastructure for handling multi-step workflows. It utilizes two operational modes: INTAKE and DISPATCHER. The INTAKE mode acts as the front-end, parsing natural language to extract, format, and serialize tasks into a persistent queue file. The DISPATCHER mode acts as the execution engine, polling the queue, spawning autonomous subagents to execute items, and managing the lifecycle of tasks—including retries and archival. Because it is designed to run asynchronously, the system is always ready, allowing you to offload complex or multi-part requests without waiting for immediate completion.

Installation

To add this capability to your agent, use the OpenClaw management utility. Run the following command in your terminal:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/chunhualiao/autonomous-task-runner

After installation, define your environment preferences in your TOOLS.md file. You can configure the directory where tasks are stored (TASK_RUNNER_DIR), the level of concurrency (TASK_RUNNER_MAX_CONCURRENT), the number of retries before a task is considered blocked (TASK_RUNNER_MAX_RETRIES), and the cleanup threshold (TASK_RUNNER_ARCHIVE_DAYS).

Use Cases

• Project Management: Break down a high-level project request into a series of actionable steps that the agent executes over time.
• Asynchronous Automation: Batch operations that take a long time to complete (e.g., scraping, complex report generation, or multi-file refactoring).
• Reliable Workflows: Use the retry logic to ensure that intermittent network failures or subagent errors do not permanently block your progress.
• Delegation: Offload repetitive, multi-step maintenance tasks while you focus on higher-level problem solving.

Example Prompts

1. "I need you to refactor the authentication module, update the unit tests for the login function, and then draft a summary of the changes in a new markdown file."
2. "Add a task to check for broken links on the staging site, and then another task to archive the logs from last week."
3. "Show me the current status of my task queue and retry any tasks that failed earlier today."

Tips & Limitations

For best results, phrase your task requests clearly with explicit action verbs. While the system supports complex compound asks, avoid adding too many unrelated tasks in a single message to ensure the subagents have clear context. Be aware that this skill performs file-write and code-execution operations; ensure your TASK_RUNNER_DIR is set to a secure, dedicated folder to prevent accidental file deletion or interference with other system processes. The system is intended to be "always on," so it may continue to consume compute resources via the heartbeat mechanism until explicitly disabled.