openclaw/docs/cli/cron.md

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CLI reference for `openclaw cron` (schedule and run background jobs)	You want scheduled jobs and wakeups You are debugging cron execution and logs	Cron

openclaw cron

Manage cron jobs for the Gateway scheduler.

Run `openclaw cron --help` for the full command surface. See [Cron jobs](/automation/cron-jobs) for the conceptual guide.

Sessions

--session accepts main, isolated, current, or session:<id>.

- `main` binds to the agent's main session. - `isolated` creates a fresh transcript and session id for each run. - `current` binds to the active session at creation time. - `session:` pins to an explicit persistent session key. Isolated runs reset ambient conversation context. Channel and group routing, send/queue policy, elevation, origin, and ACP runtime binding are reset for the new run. Safe preferences and explicit user-selected model or auth overrides can carry across runs.

Delivery

openclaw cron list and openclaw cron show <job-id> preview the resolved delivery route. For channel: "last", the preview shows whether the route resolved from the main or current session, or will fail closed.

Provider-prefixed targets can disambiguate unresolved announce channels. For example, to: "telegram:123" selects Telegram when delivery.channel is omitted or last. Only prefixes advertised by the loaded plugin are provider selectors. If delivery.channel is explicit, the prefix must match that channel; channel: "whatsapp" with to: "telegram:123" is rejected. Service prefixes such as imessage: and sms: remain channel-owned target syntax.

Isolated `cron add` jobs default to `--announce` delivery. Use `--no-deliver` to keep output internal. `--deliver` remains as a deprecated alias for `--announce`.

Delivery ownership

Isolated cron chat delivery is shared between the agent and the runner:

• The agent can send directly using the message tool when a chat route is available.
• announce fallback-delivers the final reply only when the agent did not send directly to the resolved target.
• webhook posts the finished payload to a URL.
• none disables runner fallback delivery.

--announce is runner fallback delivery for the final reply. --no-deliver disables that fallback but does not remove the agent's message tool when a chat route is available.

Reminders created from an active chat preserve the live chat delivery target for fallback announce delivery. Internal session keys may be lowercase; do not use them as a source of truth for case-sensitive provider IDs such as Matrix room IDs.

Failure delivery

Failure notifications resolve in this order:

1. delivery.failureDestination on the job.
2. Global cron.failureDestination.
3. The job's primary announce target (when no explicit failure destination is set).

Main-session jobs may only use `delivery.failureDestination` when primary delivery mode is `webhook`. Isolated jobs accept it in all modes.

Note: isolated cron runs treat run-level agent failures as job errors even when no reply payload is produced, so model/provider failures still increment error counters and trigger failure notifications.

If an isolated run times out before the first model request, openclaw cron show and openclaw cron runs include a phase-specific error such as setup timed out before runner start or stalled before first model call (last phase: context-engine). For CLI-backed providers, the pre-model watchdog stays active until the external CLI turn starts, so session lookup, hook, auth, prompt, and CLI setup stalls are reported as pre-model cron failures.

Scheduling

One-shot jobs

--at <datetime> schedules a one-shot run. Offset-less datetimes are treated as UTC unless you also pass --tz <iana>, which interprets the wall-clock time in the given timezone.

One-shot jobs delete after success by default. Use `--keep-after-run` to preserve them.

Recurring jobs

Recurring jobs use exponential retry backoff after consecutive errors: 30s, 1m, 5m, 15m, 60m. The schedule returns to normal after the next successful run.

Skipped runs are tracked separately from execution errors. They do not affect retry backoff, but openclaw cron edit <job-id> --failure-alert-include-skipped can opt failure alerts into repeated skipped-run notifications.

For isolated jobs that target a local configured model provider, cron runs a lightweight provider preflight before starting the agent turn. Loopback, private-network, and .local api: "ollama" providers are probed at /api/tags; local OpenAI-compatible providers such as vLLM, SGLang, and LM Studio are probed at /models. If the endpoint is unreachable, the run is recorded as skipped and retried on a later schedule; matching dead endpoints are cached for 5 minutes to avoid many jobs hammering the same local server.

Note: cron job definitions and pending runtime state live in the shared SQLite state database. Legacy jobs.json and jobs-state.json files are imported and removed by openclaw doctor --fix.

Manual runs

openclaw cron run returns as soon as the manual run is queued. Successful responses include { ok: true, enqueued: true, runId }. Use openclaw cron runs --id <job-id> to follow the eventual outcome.

`openclaw cron run ` force-runs by default. Use `--due` to keep the older "only run if due" behavior.

Models

cron add|edit --model <ref> selects an allowed model for the job.

If the model is not allowed or cannot be resolved, cron fails the run with an explicit validation error instead of falling back to the job's agent or default model selection.

Cron --model is a job primary, not a chat-session /model override. That means:

• Configured model fallbacks still apply when the selected job model fails.
• Per-job payload fallbacks replaces the configured fallback list when present.
• An empty per-job fallback list (fallbacks: [] in the job payload/API) makes the cron run strict.
• When a job has --model but no fallback list is configured, OpenClaw passes an explicit empty fallback override so the agent primary is not appended as a hidden retry target.

Isolated cron model precedence

Isolated cron resolves the active model in this order:

1. Gmail-hook override.
2. Per-job --model.
3. Stored cron-session model override (when the user selected one).
4. Agent or default model selection.

Fast mode

Isolated cron fast mode follows the resolved live model selection. Model config params.fastMode applies by default, but a stored session fastMode override still wins over config.

Live model switch retries

If an isolated run throws LiveSessionModelSwitchError, cron persists the switched provider and model (and switched auth profile override when present) for the active run before retrying. The outer retry loop is bounded to two switch retries after the initial attempt, then aborts instead of looping forever.

Run output and denials

Stale acknowledgement suppression

Isolated cron turns suppress stale acknowledgement-only replies. If the first result is just an interim status update and no descendant subagent run is responsible for the eventual answer, cron re-prompts once for the real result before delivery.

Silent token suppression

If an isolated cron run returns only the silent token (NO_REPLY or no_reply), cron suppresses both direct outbound delivery and the fallback queued summary path, so nothing is posted back to chat.

Structured denials

Isolated cron runs prefer structured execution-denial metadata from the embedded run, then fall back to known denial markers in final output, such as SYSTEM_RUN_DENIED, INVALID_REQUEST, and approval-binding refusal phrases.

cron list and run history surface the denial reason instead of reporting a blocked command as ok.

Retention

Cron run-log retention is controlled by cron.runLog.maxBytes and cron.runLog.keepLines. Session rows are SQLite-backed and are not pruned by age/count maintenance.

Migrating older jobs

If you have cron jobs from before the current delivery and store format, run `openclaw doctor --fix`. Doctor normalizes legacy cron fields (`jobId`, `schedule.cron`, top-level delivery fields including legacy `threadId`, payload `provider` delivery aliases) and migrates simple `notify: true` webhook fallback jobs to explicit webhook delivery when the deprecated migration fallback `cron.webhook` is configured.

Common edits

Update delivery settings without changing the message:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --announce --channel telegram --to "123456789"

Disable delivery for an isolated job:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --no-deliver

Enable lightweight bootstrap context for an isolated job:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --light-context

Announce to a specific channel:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --announce --channel slack --to "channel:C1234567890"

Announce to a Telegram forum topic:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --announce --channel telegram --to "-1001234567890" --thread-id 42

Create an isolated job with lightweight bootstrap context:

openclaw cron add \
  --name "Lightweight morning brief" \
  --cron "0 7 * * *" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Summarize overnight updates." \
  --light-context \
  --no-deliver

--light-context applies to isolated agent-turn jobs only. For cron runs, lightweight mode keeps bootstrap context empty instead of injecting the full workspace bootstrap set.

Common admin commands

Manual run and inspection:

openclaw cron list
openclaw cron list --agent ops
openclaw cron get <job-id>
openclaw cron show <job-id>
openclaw cron run <job-id>
openclaw cron run <job-id> --due
openclaw cron runs --id <job-id> --limit 50

openclaw cron list shows all matching jobs by default. Pass --agent <id> to show only jobs whose effective normalized agent id matches; jobs without a stored agent id count as the configured default agent.

openclaw cron get <job-id> returns the stored job JSON directly. Use cron show <job-id> when you want the human-readable view with delivery-route preview.

cron list --json and cron show <job-id> --json include a top-level status field on each job, computed from enabled, state.runningAtMs, and state.lastRunStatus. Values: disabled, running, ok, error, skipped, or idle. This mirrors the human-readable status column so external tooling can read job state without re-deriving it.

cron runs entries include delivery diagnostics with the intended cron target, the resolved target, message-tool sends, fallback use, and delivered state.

Agent and session retargeting:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --agent ops
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --clear-agent
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --session current
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --session "session:daily-brief"

openclaw cron add warns when --agent is omitted on agent-turn jobs and falls back to the default agent (main). Pass --agent <id> at create time to pin a specific agent.

Delivery tweaks:

openclaw cron edit <job-id> --announce --channel slack --to "channel:C1234567890"
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --best-effort-deliver
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --no-best-effort-deliver
openclaw cron edit <job-id> --no-deliver

Related

• CLI reference
• Scheduled tasks