cron-scheduling
Schedule and manage recurring tasks with cron and systemd timers. Use when setting up cron jobs, writing systemd timer units, handling timezone-aware scheduling, monitoring failed jobs, implementing retry patterns, or debugging why a scheduled task didn't run.
Why use this skill?
Learn how to manage automated tasks, cron jobs, and systemd timers with the OpenClaw cron-scheduling skill. Simplify server management and task automation.
Install via CLI (Recommended)
clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/gitgoodordietrying/cron-schedulingWhat This Skill Does
The cron-scheduling skill empowers the OpenClaw agent to act as a sophisticated system administrator, managing recurring tasks and automated job workflows. It provides comprehensive support for traditional cron jobs and modern systemd timers, allowing for precise scheduling of maintenance, backups, and reports. Beyond mere syntax, the skill is capable of interpreting complex scheduling requirements, setting up environment variables such as PATH and MAILTO, and providing debugging insights for jobs that fail to trigger or exit with non-zero statuses.
Installation
To integrate this skill into your OpenClaw environment, execute the following command in your terminal:
clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/gitgoodordietrying/cron-scheduling
Use Cases
- Automated Maintenance: Configure daily database backups and rotate log files at midnight to ensure system health and disk space management.
- Modern Service Orchestration: Transition from legacy crontabs to systemd timers, which offer better logging, dependency management, and isolation for scheduled services.
- Troubleshooting: If a scheduled task is consistently failing, use this skill to parse logs and verify environment configurations like file permissions or missing environment variables.
- Alerting: Implement health-check monitoring that triggers alerts or notification scripts when specific exit codes are detected.
Example Prompts
- "Schedule a bash script located at /home/user/cleanup.sh to run every Sunday at 3:00 AM and make sure to append the output to a log file."
- "I'm having trouble with a systemd timer. Can you help me create a service and timer unit file for a script that needs to run every 15 minutes?"
- "My cron job isn't running as expected. Here is my current crontab file; can you check the syntax and verify if my path and shell variables are configured correctly?"
Tips & Limitations
Always define an absolute path for binaries and scripts, as the cron environment typically has a minimal PATH. Use >> /var/log/myjob.log 2>&1 to capture both standard output and error messages, which is vital for debugging. While cron is powerful, it lacks advanced features like dependency chaining, which is why systemd timers are recommended for production-grade workloads. Remember that crontab changes take effect immediately, but systemd timers require a daemon-reload and service enablement to activate.
Metadata
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Find the right skillPaste this into your clawhub.json to enable this plugin.
{
"plugins": {
"official-gitgoodordietrying-cron-scheduling": {
"enabled": true,
"auto_update": true
}
}
}Tags(AI)
Flags: file-write, file-read, code-execution
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