Cron Automator

Generate cron job configurations for common automation patterns. Your scheduling assistant.

Description

Cron Automator translates plain English scheduling requests into correct cron expressions with the surrounding shell configuration. It handles the tricky parts — timezone issues, output logging, error handling, overlap prevention, and the cron syntax nobody can remember. Stop Googling "cron every 15 minutes" and just ask.

Activation

This skill activates when:

• The user wants to schedule a recurring task
• The user asks about cron syntax or crontab configuration
• The user wants to automate something on a schedule
• The user mentions scheduling, recurring jobs, or timed automation

Trigger phrases: "schedule this", "run every", "cron job", "crontab", "automate daily", "run at midnight", "schedule a task", "every 15 minutes", "recurring job"

Instructions

When given a scheduling request, respond with:

## Cron Configuration

### Schedule: [plain English description]
### Expression: [cron expression]

[Description of what this does]

Schedule: [human-readable]

Added: [date]

SHELL=/bin/bash PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

[expression] [command with logging and error handling]

### Breakdown
- Minute: [value] — [explanation]
- Hour: [value] — [explanation]
- Day of Month: [value] — [explanation]
- Month: [value] — [explanation]
- Day of Week: [value] — [explanation]

### Next 5 Runs
1. [datetime]
2. [datetime]
3. [datetime]
4. [datetime]
5. [datetime]

### Gotchas
- [Any timezone, PATH, or environment issues to watch for]

Cron Expression Reference

* * * * *
| | | | |
| | | | +-- Day of Week   (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
| | | +---- Month         (1-12)
| | +------ Day of Month  (1-31)
| +-------- Hour          (0-23)
+---------- Minute        (0-59)

Common Patterns

Production-Grade Templates

Basic with Logging

# Daily backup at 2am
0 2 * * * /home/user/scripts/backup.sh >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1

With Overlap Prevention (flock)

# Sync every 5 min, but skip if previous run is still going
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/flock -n /tmp/sync.lock /home/user/scripts/sync.sh >> /var/log/sync.log 2>&1

With Error Alerting

# Process data hourly, email on failure
0 * * * * /home/user/scripts/process.sh >> /var/log/process.log 2>&1 || echo "Process failed at $(date)" | mail -s "CRON ALERT" [email protected]

With Timeout

# Run report with 5-minute timeout
0 8 * * * timeout 300 /home/user/scripts/report.sh >> /var/log/report.log 2>&1

With Environment Variables

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/home/user/.local/bin
NODE_ENV=production

# API sync every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * * cd /home/user/app && node sync.js >> /var/log/sync.log 2>&1

With Health Check Ping

# Backup with dead man's switch (pings healthcheck URL on success)
0 3 * * * /home/user/scripts/backup.sh >> /var/log/backup.log 2>&1 && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://hc-ping.com/your-uuid > /dev/null

Common Automation Patterns

Content Pipeline

# Generate daily content at 7am
0 7 * * * cd /workspace && python generate_content.py >> logs/content.log 2>&1

# QA score content at 8am (after generation)
0 8 * * * cd /workspace && python qa_scorer.py >> logs/qa.log 2>&1

# Publish approved content at 9am
0 9 * * * cd /workspace && python publish.py >> logs/publish.log 2>&1

Business Operations

# Morning briefing at 8am weekdays
0 8 * * 1-5 cd /workspace && python daily_brief.py >> logs/brief.log 2>&1

# Invoice reminder every Monday
0 10 * * 1 cd /workspace && python invoice_reminder.py >> logs/invoices.log 2>&1

# Weekly report Sunday 6pm
0 18 * * 0 cd /workspace && python weekly_report.py >> logs/weekly.log 2>&1

System Maintenance

# Disk cleanup weekly
0 3 * * 0 /usr/bin/find /tmp -mtime +7 -delete >> /var/log/cleanup.log 2>&1

# Log rotation daily
0 0 * * * /usr/sbin/logrotate /etc/logrotate.conf

# Health check every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * * /home/user/scripts/healthcheck.sh >> /var/log/health.log 2>&1

Example

Input

I want to run a Python script that checks my fleet status every 6 hours, but only if the previous check isn't still running. Log output to ~/logs/fleet.log. The script is at ~/scripts/fleet_check.py.

Output

Cron Configuration

Schedule: Every 6 hours with overlap prevention

Expression: 0 */6 * * *

# Fleet status check — every 6 hours, skip if previous still running
# Schedule: 00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 daily
# Added: 2026-03-26
SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/home/user/.local/bin

0 */6 * * * /usr/bin/flock -n /tmp/fleet_check.lock /usr/bin/python3 /root/scripts/fleet_check.py >> /root/logs/fleet.log 2>&1

Breakdown

• Minute: 0 — At the top of the hour
• Hour: */6 — Every 6th hour (0, 6, 12, 18)
• Day of Month: * — Every day
• Month: * — Every month
• Day of Week: * — Every day of the week

Installation

# Create log directory
mkdir -p ~/logs

# Edit crontab
crontab -e
# Paste the cron line above

# Verify
crontab -l

Gotchas

• flock -n will silently skip the run if the lock file exists (previous run still going). Check logs if you suspect missed runs.
• Python path may differ — run which python3 to confirm.
• Cron uses the system timezone. Run timedatectl to verify.

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