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The SDK supports running agents on cron schedules. Scheduled agents persist across process restarts and run independently of any client application.

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How Scheduling Works

  1. You define a schedule (cron expression + prompt + config)
  2. The SDK stores the schedule and manages execution
  3. At each trigger time a new session is created and the agent is run
  4. Results are stored and can be routed to connectors (Slack, email, etc.)
Scheduled agents rely on the hub-spoke architecture that is part of ClineCore. The hub runs as a background process on your machine. It starts automatically when needed and persists schedules across restarts.

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Creating Schedules Programmatically with Cline SDK

import { ClineCore } from "@cline/sdk"

const cline = await ClineCore.create({
  clientName: "scheduler",
  automation: true,
})

await cline.automation.start()

// Use cline.automation to reconcile specs, ingest events, and list runs.

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Schedule Wizard with Cline CLI

An easy way to schedule task is to use Cline CLI for scheduling task, if you’ve already installed via npm i -g cline Run cline schedule to open an interactive menu for creating and managing schedules, browsing execution history, and viewing performance statistics.

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Creating Schedules with Flags

# Daily at 9 AM on weekdays
cline schedule create "PR summary" \
  --cron "0 9 * * MON-FRI" \
  --prompt "List all open PRs, their review status, and any that have been open more than 3 days" \
  --workspace /path/to/repo \
  --model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6

# Every 6 hours
cline schedule create "Health check" \
  --cron "0 */6 * * *" \
  --prompt "Run the test suite and report any failures" \
  --workspace /path/to/project

# Monday mornings
cline schedule create "Weekly digest" \
  --cron "0 8 * * MON" \
  --prompt "Summarize last week's commits, PRs merged, and issues closed"

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Managing Schedules

# List all schedules
cline schedule list

# Trigger a schedule immediately (without waiting for cron)
cline schedule trigger <schedule-id>

# Pause a schedule
cline schedule pause <schedule-id>

# Resume a paused schedule
cline schedule resume <schedule-id>

# Delete a schedule
cline schedule delete <schedule-id>

# View execution history
cline schedule executions <schedule-id>

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Cron Expression Reference

ExpressionSchedule
0 9 * * MON-FRI9 AM, Monday through Friday
0 */6 * * *Every 6 hours
0 8 * * MON8 AM every Monday
30 17 * * *5:30 PM every day
0 0 1 * *Midnight on the 1st of each month
*/30 * * * *Every 30 minutes

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Use Cases

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Daily Standup Summary

cline schedule create "Standup prep" \
  --cron "0 8 * * MON-FRI" \
  --prompt "Summarize: (1) PRs merged yesterday, (2) PRs currently in review, (3) open issues assigned to team members. Format as a brief standup update." \
  --workspace /path/to/repo

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Automated Dependency Updates

cline schedule create "Dependency check" \
  --cron "0 10 * * MON" \
  --prompt "Check for outdated npm dependencies. For any with security vulnerabilities, create a branch with the update and open a PR." \
  --workspace /path/to/project

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Codebase Health Report

cline schedule create "Code health" \
  --cron "0 6 * * MON" \
  --prompt "Analyze the codebase for: (1) files with no test coverage, (2) TODO/FIXME comments older than 30 days, (3) functions longer than 100 lines. Produce a health report." \
  --workspace /path/to/project

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Concurrency and Resource Limits

The scheduler enforces limits to prevent resource exhaustion:
  • Schedules have configurable concurrency limits
  • If a previous execution is still running when the next trigger fires, the new execution is queued or skipped (configurable)
  • The hub monitors resource usage and can pause schedules if the system is under load

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Routing Results

Combine scheduled agents with connectors in CLI to route results to messaging platforms: 
# Start a Telegram connector
cline connect telegram -k $BOT_TOKEN

# Schedule an agent whose output gets sent to Telegram
cline schedule create "Morning briefing" \
  --cron "0 8 * * *" \
  --prompt "Summarize overnight activity in the repo"