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:

• Routines: Work that should run reliably without your machine (daily PR reviews, overnight CI analysis), or that needs to react to API calls or GitHub events
• 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)

Routines (Cloud)

Routines run on Anthropic-managed infrastructure. They keep working even when your computer is off. A routine is a saved Claude Code configuration (prompt, repositories, connectors, environment) packaged once and run automatically by one or more triggers.

Anthropic rebranded this product from "Cloud Scheduled Tasks" to Routines in 2026. The old web-scheduled-tasks doc URL now redirects to /en/routines. Routines are in research preview, so behavior, limits, and the API surface may change.

Availability

Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users with Claude Code on the web enabled. Team and Enterprise admins can disable routines org-wide via the Routines toggle in admin settings.

Trigger Types

A routine can have one or more triggers attached. Multiple triggers can be combined on a single routine.

Creating a Routine

Create from three places. All three surfaces write to the same cloud account, so a routine you create in one shows up in the others immediately.

• Web: Visit claude.ai/code/routines and click New routine
• Desktop: Click Routines in the sidebar, click New routine, choose Remote (choosing Local instead creates a Desktop scheduled task)
• CLI: Run /schedule in any session. Claude walks through setup conversationally. You can also pass a description: /schedule daily PR review at 9am. The CLI creates scheduled-trigger routines only; add API or GitHub triggers from the web.

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.

Schedule Trigger 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.

Times are entered in your local zone and converted automatically. Runs may start a few minutes after the scheduled time due to stagger; the offset is consistent per routine.

One-off runs auto-disable after firing and do not count against the daily routine run cap.

API Trigger

An API trigger gives a routine a dedicated HTTP endpoint. POSTing to the endpoint with the routine's bearer token starts a new session and returns a session URL. Useful for wiring Claude Code into alerting systems, deploy pipelines, or any tool that can make an authenticated HTTP request.

API triggers are added from the web only; the CLI cannot create or revoke tokens. The endpoint requires the experimental-cc-routine-2026-04-01 beta header during research preview.

curl -X POST https://api.anthropic.com/v1/claude_code/routines/trig_<id>/fire \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-ant-oat01-xxxxx" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: experimental-cc-routine-2026-04-01" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Sentry alert SEN-4521 fired in prod."}'

The optional text field is freeform per-run context passed to the routine alongside its saved prompt. Each routine has its own token, scoped to triggering that routine only.

GitHub Trigger

A GitHub trigger starts a new session automatically when a matching event occurs on a connected repository. Each matching event starts its own session.

• Supported events: Pull request (opened, closed, assigned, labeled, synchronized, etc.) and Release (created, published, edited, deleted)
• Filters: Author, title, body, base branch, head branch, labels, draft state, merged state. Operators: equals, contains, starts with, is one of, is not one of, matches regex
• Setup: Requires the Claude GitHub App installed on the target repository. /web-setup grants clone access but does NOT install the GitHub App; the trigger setup flow prompts for it.

GitHub triggers are configured from the web UI only.

Managing Routines

From the routine detail page:

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

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

Usage and Limits

Routines draw down subscription usage like interactive sessions, plus a per-account daily cap on how many runs can start. One-off runs are exempt from the daily cap. Organizations with extra usage enabled can keep running routines on metered overage when the cap is hit. GitHub webhook events are subject to per-routine and per-account hourly caps during research preview.

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 Routines or 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 Routines 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

• Routines (formerly Cloud Scheduled Tasks; old web-scheduled-tasks URL redirects here)
• Desktop Scheduled Tasks
• CLI Scheduled Tasks (/loop)
• Trigger a routine via API
• GitHub Actions
• Channels