Cron Extension

Sense: Time — scheduled execution with cron, interval, and one-shot jobs.

Cron gives your agent autonomous behavior. Schedule prompt jobs that run on a timer — the agent wakes up, reads context, takes action, and exits cleanly. This is how you go from “agent that responds when asked” to “agent that notices things on its own.”

When to Use

Morning briefings that gather data and post a summary
Channel monitors that watch Teams and participate in conversations
Heartbeat loops that maintain memory and detect stale items
One-shot reminders (“remind me to check on this in 2 hours”)
Any recurring task the agent should do without being asked

Quick Example

> "Schedule a job that checks my open PRs every morning at 9am
>  and writes a summary to my inbox"

The agent creates a prompt job — a scheduled AI session that runs autonomously:

cron_create:
  name: morning-pr-review
  scheduleType: cron
  cronExpression: "0 9 * * 1-5"
  timezone: "America/New_York"
  payloadType: prompt
  prompt: "Check my open GitHub PRs and write a summary to inbox/pr-status.md"

Schedule Types

Type	Example	Use For
Cron	`"0 9 * * 1-5"` (weekdays 9am)	Recurring at specific times
Interval	`600000` (10 minutes)	Polling and monitoring loops
One-shot	`"2026-03-17T18:00:00Z"`	Fire-and-forget reminders

Payload Types

Command — run a shell command:

payloadType: command
command: echo
arguments: "hello world"

Prompt — send a prompt to the AI (the interesting one):

payloadType: prompt
prompt: "Read domains/my-loop/prompt.md and follow its instructions exactly."
model: "claude-sonnet-4.5"
timeoutSeconds: 120

Prompt jobs inherit the agent’s identity from SOUL.md. They can read files, call APIs, write output, and use any tool available in a normal session.

Tools

Tool	Description
`cron_create`	Create a new scheduled job
`cron_list`	List all jobs with status and next run time
`cron_get`	Get job details and recent run history
`cron_update`	Update schedule, payload, or timeout
`cron_delete`	Delete a job and its history
`cron_pause`	Disable a job (keeps definition)
`cron_resume`	Re-enable a paused job
`cron_engine_start`	Start the background engine
`cron_engine_stop`	Stop the engine
`cron_engine_status`	Check engine status and job count

The Engine

A background process ticks every 2 seconds, evaluates which jobs are due, and dispatches them. It auto-starts when a Copilot session begins.

Failed jobs use exponential backoff: 1min → 2min → 4min → 8min → 16min (max). Backoff resets on a successful run.

Reference

Full details: extension README
Domain-driven prompt pattern: cron-prompt-pattern.md