Agent Cron and Heartbeat Scheduler
Decide which recurring agent tasks belong on a schedule vs a signal-only heartbeat, then write the config.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
That's a good idea to automate agent work. You have a few options: You could set up a scheduled job to run the agent on a timer, maybe every morning or every week. Or you could set up monitoring that watches for specific events and only notifies you when something happens. The best approach depends on what reports you need and how often. Do you want daily summaries? Weekly reports? Are there specific alerts you need? I could help design a schedule, but I'd need to know more about what your agent does and when you need information.
AGENT AUTOMATION PLAN
CRON JOBS (always fire on schedule):
• Weekly YT Analytics Report
Frequency: Sunday 09:00 UTC
Output: CSV + Slack thread
Prompt: "Generate weekly subscriber, views, engagement, revenue snapshot"
Failure policy: Retry at 11:00 UTC, alert @drew if both fail
• Monday Planner Refresh
Frequency: Monday 06:30 UTC
Output: Agenda document + iMessage
Prompt: "Pull calendar, top 3 priorities, blocked time, meeting prep"
Quiet hours: None (critical morning planning)
HEARTBEAT JOBS (poll, alert only on match):
• VIP Inbox Monitor
Frequency: Every 15 minutes
Watch for: New emails from founder, tier-1 partners (10 contacts)
On match: Alert via Telegram @drew_alerts
Quiet hours: 22:00-07:00 UTC (except emergencies)
• Deal Slippage Detector
Frequency: Every 4 hours
Watch for: Opportunities with close_date < 7 days, no recent activity
On match: List slipping deals + suggested next action
Quiet hours: 19:00-09:00 UTC (business hours only)
CONFIGURATION:
{
"timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
"notification_channel": "Telegram",
"failed_job_escalation": "email if 2 retries fail",
"quiet_hours_enforce": true,
"weekly_digest_send_time": "Saturday 19:00",
"min_heartbeat_frequency": "5m",
"max_context_tokens_per_run": 8000
}
STATUS:
✓ 2 cron jobs enabled
✓ 2 heartbeats polling
✓ Notifications routing to Telegram
✓ Last run: 2 hours ago (YT report completed 3m)About this skill
name: agent-cron-and-heartbeat description: Decide which recurring agent tasks belong on a schedule vs a signal-only heartbeat, then write the config. Use when working on agent cron and heartbeat scheduler.
Agent Cron and Heartbeat Scheduler
A running agent needs two very different scheduling shapes: cron jobs that always fire (weekly channel report, Monday planner refresh) and heartbeats that poll silently and only ping you when something matches (VIP email arrived, meeting starts in 2 hours). This skill takes your list of recurring jobs, sorts them into the right bucket, writes the prompt and the config file, and enables it. Use to turn a manual-only agent into one that works on its own without over-notifying.
What you get
- Job classification table (cron vs heartbeat)
- Cron prompt templates
- heartbeat.md template
- Notification-quieting rules
- Enable/disable commands
- Failure-escalation policy
Customize your output
- Timezone: dropdown
- Job list: free text
- VIP contact list: comma
- Notification channel: Telegram, Slack, iMessage, email
- Polling frequency per heartbeat: 5m, 15m, 30m, hourly
- Quiet hours: on, off with time range
Example output
'Wrote 2 cron jobs (weekly YT report Sun 08:00, monday planner Mon 06:30) and 3 heartbeats (vip inbox 15m, calendar 2hr 30m, deal slippage daily 17:00). All enabled. Notifications routing to Telegram @drew_bot.'
Best for
Operators who already have an agent but only trigger it manually.
Note: High confidence. Difference between useful automation and notification spam.
SKILL.md preview
---
name: agent-cron-and-heartbeat
description: Use this skill to turn a manual-only agent into one that runs recurring jobs on its own, sorting each job into a scheduled cron task or a silent signal-only heartbeat.
version: 1.0.0
category: AI Systems
author: AgentVolt
license: proprietary
tags:
- ai-systems
- p4
---
# Agent Cron and Heartbeat Scheduler
Takes a list of recurring agent jobs and sorts each into the correct scheduling shape — always-fire cron jobs versus silent polling heartbeats that only surface when something matches — then writes and enables the config.
## When to use
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