Scheduled Tasks (Cron) — Let AI Work Automatically

Think of it like a reliable housekeeper who doesn’t need reminding — you set the clock once, and the work just gets done.

Hermes Agent’s scheduled tasks (cron) do exactly that. You tell your AI assistant when to work and what to do, and it handles the rest on autopilot. No repeated prompts, no supervision needed.

What Can You Actually Do With It?

Timed reminders: “Remind me to check the build in 30 minutes”
Recurring jobs: “Check server status every 2 hours”
Skill-powered tasks: Let AI use your installed skills (like a blog monitor) to complete work
Flexible delivery: Send results back to chat, save them to a local file, or push them to another platform
Pure script mode: No AI involved — just run a script on schedule and get the output directly

Creating a Scheduled Task Is Easy

In chat, use the /cron command (most intuitive):

/cron add 30m "remind me to check the build"
/cron add "every 2h" "check server status"
/cron add "every 1h" "summarize new subscriptions" --skill blogwatcher

In the terminal, use hermes cron create (great for scripts or remote control):

hermes cron create "every 2h" "check server status"
hermes cron create "every 1h" "summarize new subscriptions" --skill blogwatcher

Beyond creating, you can pause, resume, modify, trigger immediately, or delete tasks — just say it in chat, like “change that every-2-hour task to every hour.”

Important: Which Model Does the AI Use?

This trips up beginners. Three scenarios:

You specify manually: Assign a model to a specific task — it always uses that one.
Set a “cron-specific model”: Configure it once in your settings file. All tasks without their own model use this. Your everyday chat model can change freely without affecting scheduled jobs.
Nothing set: It falls back to your current default model. But beware — if you later change your default model, old tasks will refuse to run and warn you. This prevents accidentally running on a more expensive model.

My advice: If you use scheduled tasks regularly, spend one minute setting cron.model (e.g., hermes config set cron.model gpt-4o-mini). Set it once, forget it forever.

A Safety Mechanism (Don’t Worry, It’s a Good Thing)

Scheduled tasks cannot create new scheduled tasks. This prevents AI from spiraling into self-assigning endless jobs and cluttering your system. So no, you can’t have AI give itself more work.

Final Tips

Start simple: Try “remind me to drink water every hour” first. Feel the rhythm.
Combine skills with --skill: Have AI use two skills at once and merge the results for you.
Check the output: After the first run, review the result. Adjust the timing or instructions if needed.

Scheduled tasks are your “AI alarm clock + auto-executor.” Set them up, and it’s like having that dependable housekeeper — shows up on time, does the work, tells you when it’s done. Go try it now. Let your AI actually work for you.