schedule-recipe

name: schedule-recipedescription: "Turn 'run this every Friday at 4pm' into a working, copy-paste schedule on the user's actual runner. Use when asked to schedule a recurring AI task, set up a routine or cron job for a skill, automate a weekly report, or wire a skill into n8n or GitHub Actions. Produces the exact setup for the chosen runner plus the prompt to run, failure alerting, and a first-run test plan."

Schedule Recipe Skill

Convert a recurring intent — "competitive briefing every Monday 8am" — into the concrete, copy-paste setup for whatever runner the user actually has, with failure handling so it degrades loudly, not silently.

What This Skill Produces

• A runner recommendation (or confirmation of the user's choice) with the reason
• The exact setup — command, cron expression, or workflow file — ready to paste
• The run prompt: what the scheduled agent should do each cycle, including which skill to load
• Failure alerting and a first-run test plan

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• What should run — which skill or task, and what inputs it reads each cycle
• Cadence and timezone — "every Friday 4pm" means nothing without one
• Where it can run — Claude Code (routines/loops), a server with cron, n8n, or GitHub Actions
• Where the output should land — file in a repo, Slack/email, a Brain folder, a PR

Working from a brief

Given what the user runs and where the output should go, write the working setup anyway: choose the runner from what they described, give the complete run prompt, the schedule definition with the time zone handled, and how to test it once by hand. Use placeholders only for paths you cannot infer.

Runner Selection

Pick the simplest runner the user already has, in this order:

State the choice and the runner-up. If the user names a runner, use it — don't relitigate.

The Run Prompt

Every recipe includes the prompt the scheduled run executes. It must contain:

1. The skill to load and the artifact to produce
2. The sources to read this cycle — explicit paths/URLs, not "the usual"
3. Where to write the result and how to mark the edition (date, sources read)
4. What to do on missing sources — name the failure behaviour, never fabricate
5. Delta instruction if recurring: read the previous edition first and report changes (see delta-briefing)

Output Format

Schedule Recipe: [task] — [cadence]

Runner: [choice] — because [one line]. Runner-up: [alternative] if [condition].

Setup (copy-paste):

[the exact command / crontab line / workflow YAML / n8n outline]

Run prompt:

[the full prompt the scheduled agent executes each cycle]

Failure alerting: [how a failed/skipped run becomes visible — e.g. the run posts an error note to the same channel it would post the brief].

First-run test: trigger one run manually now; check [the two or three things that prove it worked] before trusting the schedule.

Quality Checks

• The cron expression / schedule matches the stated cadence and timezone — show the conversion
• The setup block is genuinely copy-paste: no <placeholders> left except secrets, which are named
• The run prompt names explicit sources and an output destination
• A failed run is visible somewhere a human already looks
• The recipe includes a manual first-run test, not just "it'll fire Monday"

Anti-Patterns

• Do not pick a runner the user doesn't have — a perfect n8n flow is useless without n8n
• Do not write a run prompt that says "as usual" or relies on the agent remembering prior runs without a stored previous edition
• Do not schedule without failure alerting — silence and success must not look identical
• Do not default to hourly/daily to "be safe" — match the cadence to how often the inputs change
• Do not put secrets inline in the setup block — reference the runner's secret store

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Schedule a recurring AI task."
• "Set up a routine."
• "Automate a weekly report."
• "Wire a skill into n8n or GitHub Actions."