Claude Code Scheduled Tasks

Claude Code offers three ways to schedule recurring work, each suited to different needs.

Scheduling Options Comparison

When to use which:

• Cloud tasks: Work that should run reliably without your machine (daily PR reviews, overnight CI analysis)
• Desktop tasks: Need access to local files and tools (code reviews against your working directory)
• /loop: Quick polling during a session (watching a deployment, babysitting a PR)

Cloud Scheduled Tasks

Cloud scheduled tasks run on Anthropic-managed infrastructure. They keep working even when your computer is off.

Availability

Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users.

Creating Cloud Tasks

Create from three places:

• Web: Visit claude.ai/code/scheduled and click New scheduled task
• Desktop: Open the Schedule page, click New task, choose New remote task
• CLI: Run /schedule in any session. Claude walks through setup conversationally. You can also pass a description: /schedule daily PR review at 9am

Configuration

Branch Permissions

By default, Claude can only push to branches prefixed with claude/. Enable Allow unrestricted branch pushes per repository to remove this restriction.

Frequency Options

For custom intervals (every 2 hours, first of each month), pick the closest preset and update from CLI with /schedule update to set a specific cron expression. Minimum interval is 1 hour.

Tasks may run a few minutes after their scheduled time. The offset is consistent per task.

Managing Cloud Tasks

From the task detail page:

• Run now: Trigger immediately without waiting for schedule
• Toggle repeats: Pause/resume without deleting
• Edit: Change prompt, schedule, repositories, environment, or connectors
• View runs: Each run creates a session where you can review changes and create PRs
• Delete: Remove the task (past sessions remain)

CLI management: /schedule list, /schedule update, /schedule run

Desktop Scheduled Tasks

Desktop scheduled tasks run on your machine with access to local files and tools. The Desktop app must be open and your computer awake.

Creating Desktop Tasks

Click Schedule in the sidebar, click New task, choose New local task.

You can also create tasks conversationally: "set up a daily code review that runs every morning at 9am."

By default, local tasks run against whatever state your working directory is in, including uncommitted changes. Enable the worktree toggle to give each run its own isolated Git worktree.

Frequency Options

For intervals the picker doesn't offer, ask Claude in any Desktop session using plain language.

How Desktop Tasks Run

• Desktop checks the schedule every minute while the app is open
• Each task gets a deterministic delay of up to 10 minutes after scheduled time
• Tasks only run while the Desktop app is running and computer is awake
• Enable Keep computer awake in Settings to prevent idle-sleep (closing lid still sleeps)

Missed Runs

When the app starts or computer wakes, Desktop checks each task for missed runs in the last seven days. If any were missed, it starts exactly one catch-up run for the most recently missed time. A daily task that missed six days runs once on wake.

Write prompts with timing awareness. A 9am task might run at 11pm if your computer was asleep all day. Add guardrails like "Only review today's commits. If it's after 5pm, skip the review."

Permissions

Each task has its own permission mode set at creation. Allow rules from ~/.claude/settings.json also apply. If a task stalls on a permission prompt, the session stays open for you to approve later.

To avoid stalls: click Run now after creating a task, approve prompts with "always allow," and future runs auto-approve the same tools. Review and revoke from the task's Always allowed panel.

Task Files on Disk

Task prompts are stored at ~/.claude/scheduled-tasks/<task-name>/SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter (name, description) and the prompt as the body. Changes take effect on the next run. Schedule, folder, model, and enabled state must be changed through the Edit form or by asking Claude.

Managing Desktop Tasks

From the task detail page:

• Run now: Trigger immediately
• Toggle repeats: Pause/resume
• Edit: Change prompt, frequency, folder, or other settings
• Review history: See past runs including skipped ones
• Review permissions: See and revoke saved tool approvals
• Delete: Remove the task and archive all sessions it created

CLI Session-Scoped Scheduling

/loop Command

The /loop skill is the quickest way to schedule a recurring prompt within a session. Pass an optional interval and a prompt:

/loop 5m check if the deployment finished and tell me what happened

Claude parses the interval, converts to a cron expression, schedules the job, and confirms.

Interval Syntax

Supported units: s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), d (days). Seconds round up to the nearest minute (cron granularity). Intervals that don't divide evenly are rounded to the nearest clean interval.

Loop Over Other Commands

The scheduled prompt can be another command or skill:

/loop 20m /review-pr 1234

One-Time Reminders

Describe what you want in natural language:

remind me at 3pm to push the release branch
in 45 minutes, check whether the integration tests passed

Claude schedules a single-fire task that deletes itself after running.

Underlying Tools

Each task has an 8-character ID. A session can hold up to 50 scheduled tasks.

How Session Tasks Run

• The scheduler checks every second for due tasks, enqueued at low priority
• Tasks fire between your turns, not while Claude is mid-response
• If Claude is busy, the prompt waits until the current turn ends
• All times are in your local timezone

Jitter

• Recurring tasks: Fire up to 10% of their period late, capped at 15 minutes
• One-shot tasks: Scheduled for :00 or :30 fire up to 90 seconds early
• Offset is derived from task ID (deterministic per task)

Seven-Day Expiry

Recurring tasks automatically expire 7 days after creation. The task fires one final time, then deletes itself. This bounds how long a forgotten loop can run. Cancel and recreate before expiry if needed, or use Cloud/Desktop tasks for durable scheduling.

Disabling Session Scheduling

Set CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_CRON=1 to disable the scheduler entirely. The cron tools and /loop become unavailable.

Cron Expression Reference

CronCreate and cloud tasks accept standard 5-field cron expressions: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

All fields support wildcards (*), single values (5), steps (*/15), ranges (1-5), and comma-separated lists (1,15,30).

Day-of-week: 0 or 7 for Sunday through 6 for Saturday. Extended syntax (L, W, ?, name aliases like MON) is not supported. When both day-of-month and day-of-week are constrained, a date matches if either field matches (standard vixie-cron semantics).

Session-Scoped Limitations

• Tasks only fire while Claude Code is running and idle
• No catch-up for missed fires (fires once when Claude becomes idle)
• No persistence across restarts
• 50 task limit per session
• 7-day automatic expiry for recurring tasks

Sources

• Cloud Scheduled Tasks
• Desktop Scheduled Tasks
• CLI Scheduled Tasks (/loop)
• GitHub Actions
• Channels