Your First Automation

Create a morning briefing that runs automatically every day.

⏱️ ~10 minutes

What is Cron?

Cron jobs are scheduled tasks that run automatically. OpenClaw can execute any prompt on a schedule—perfect for:

  • 🌅 Morning briefings (weather, calendar, tasks)
  • 📊 Daily/weekly reports
  • 🔔 Regular check-ins and reminders
  • 📧 Email digests
  • 🗑️ Cleanup and maintenance tasks

Prerequisites

  • ✅ OpenClaw installed and running
  • ✅ At least one channel connected (Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.)
  • ✅ Basic familiarity with OpenClaw chat
1

Plan Your Briefing

Let's create a morning briefing that tells you:

  • Today's date and weather
  • Your calendar events
  • Any reminders or to-dos
💡

Start simple! You can always add more to your briefing later.

2

Test the Prompt First

Before scheduling, test your briefing prompt manually:

Give me a morning briefing: today's date, weather for [your city], and my calendar events for today.

Send this to OpenClaw via your chat channel. Tweak the prompt until you're happy with the response.

Example Response:

☀️ Good morning! Here's your briefing for Tuesday, Feb 1:

Weather: San Francisco - 58°F, partly cloudy

Calendar:
• 9:00 AM - Team standup
• 2:00 PM - Client call with Acme Corp
• 5:00 PM - Gym

Have a great day! 🚀

3

Create the Cron Job

Now let's schedule it! You can create cron jobs by asking OpenClaw directly:

Create a cron job that runs every weekday at 7am: "Give me a morning briefing with today's weather for San Francisco and my calendar events."

OpenClaw will confirm the schedule:

✅ Created cron job: morning-briefing
Schedule: Every weekday at 7:00 AM
Next run: Tomorrow at 7:00 AM

Alternative: Manual Configuration

You can also add cron jobs to your config file:

# ~/.openclaw/config.yaml
cron:
  morning-briefing:
    schedule: "0 7 * * 1-5"  # 7am, Mon-Fri
    prompt: "Give me a morning briefing..."
    channel: telegram  # Where to send the result
4

Verify It's Running

Check your scheduled jobs:

Show me my cron jobs

Or via the CLI:

openclaw cron list

You can also trigger it manually to test:

openclaw cron run morning-briefing

Cron Schedule Reference

Common schedules you might use:

Schedule Cron Expression
Every day at 7am0 7 * * *
Weekdays at 7am0 7 * * 1-5
Every Monday at 9am0 9 * * 1
Every hour0 * * * *
Every 30 minutes*/30 * * * *
First of month at noon0 12 1 * *

See full cron documentation →

More Automation Ideas

📧

Email Digest

Summarize unread emails every morning

📈

Weekly Report

Generate progress reports every Friday

🔔

Reminder Check

Review upcoming deadlines daily

🌙

End of Day

Summarize accomplishments at 6pm

Managing Cron Jobs

Pause a job:

Pause the morning-briefing cron job

Delete a job:

Delete the morning-briefing cron job

Update a job:

Update morning-briefing to run at 8am instead

Next Steps

💰 Reduce API Costs → 📚 Advanced Cron Documentation → 🔧 Browse Skills to Automate →