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Overview

OpenClaw’s cron system lets you automate research workflows. Set up jobs to:
  • Monitor trends daily
  • Get weekly research reports
  • Alert you when content goes viral

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Daily Trend Check

Check what’s trending every morning and get a summary: 
{
  "name": "Daily Trend Check",
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "cron",
    "expr": "0 9 * * *",
    "tz": "America/Chicago"
  },
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Run yoinkit research for my niches: [productivity, AI tools, creator economy]. Summarize what's trending and flag any viral content I should respond to quickly."
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated",
  "delivery": {
    "mode": "announce",
    "channel": "telegram"
  }
}
What it does:
  • Runs at 9 AM Central every day
  • Researches your defined niches
  • Sends a summary to your Telegram

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Weekly Deep Research

More comprehensive research once a week: 
{
  "name": "Weekly Deep Research",
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "cron",
    "expr": "0 10 * * 1",
    "tz": "America/Chicago"
  },
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Do deep research on my content niches (AI, productivity, creator tools). Pull transcripts from the top 5 videos in each niche this week. Identify 3 content ideas I haven't covered yet. Save findings to my Obsidian vault at Yoinkit/Research/Weekly."
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated"
}
What it does:
  • Runs Monday at 10 AM
  • Deep research with transcript pulls
  • Saves to Obsidian for later review

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Viral Content Alert

Check hourly for viral content in your niches: 
{
  "name": "Viral Alert",
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "every",
    "everyMs": 3600000
  },
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Check yoinkit trending for youtube and tiktok in my niches. If anything is going viral (>100K views in <24h), alert me immediately with a suggested content response strategy."
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated",
  "delivery": {
    "mode": "announce",
    "channel": "telegram"
  }
}
What it does:
  • Runs every hour
  • Only alerts if something is actually viral
  • Includes suggested response strategy

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Competitor Watch

Monitor specific creators weekly: 
{
  "name": "Competitor Watch",
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "cron",
    "expr": "0 18 * * 5",
    "tz": "America/Chicago"
  },
  "payload": {
    "kind": "agentTurn",
    "message": "Analyze this week's content from these creators: @mkbhd, @aliabdaal, @thomasfrank. What topics did they cover? What's performing well? Any gaps I could fill?"
  },
  "sessionTarget": "isolated"
}
What it does:
  • Runs Friday at 6 PM
  • Analyzes competitor content
  • Identifies opportunities

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Setting Up Cron Jobs

Just tell your assistant what you want. No JSON required:
“Every morning at 9, check what’s trending on YouTube and TikTok in tech”
“Set up a daily trend check for productivity content”
“I want a morning briefing on what’s viral in my niches”
“Create a weekly job that researches AI tools and sends me content ideas”
“Every Monday, find what creators are talking about in the home automation space”
“Set up research on fourth amendment discussions — check Twitter and Reddit weekly”
“Watch these channels weekly and tell me what they’re posting: @mkbhd, @aliabdaal”
“Every Friday, analyze my competitors’ top performing content”
“Track what MKBHD, Marques Brownlee, and Linus Tech Tips are doing”
“Alert me if anything about privacy laws goes viral on Twitter”
“Every few hours, check if any AI content is blowing up”
“Notify me immediately when videos in my niche hit 100K views”
“Every Sunday night, give me a content plan based on what’s trending”
“Research next week’s potential topics every Friday”
“Find me 5 video ideas based on this week’s trends”
OpenClaw translates your request into a cron job. You describe the schedule and research goal — it handles the technical details.

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Via CLI

# Add a job
openclaw cron add --name "Daily Trends" --schedule "0 9 * * *" ...

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Via Config

Add to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json: 
{
  "cron": {
    "jobs": [
      {
        "name": "Daily Trend Check",
        "schedule": { "kind": "cron", "expr": "0 9 * * *" },
        ...
      }
    ]
  }
}

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Tips

Batch similar checks — Instead of multiple hourly jobs, combine checks into one job that runs every few hours.
Use time zones — Always specify tz in your cron schedule to avoid confusion.
Save to files — For research jobs, have the agent save results to Obsidian or markdown files for later review.
Credits — Each API call in a cron job uses credits. Deep research jobs that pull transcripts use more credits than quick trend checks.

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Example Workflow: Content Creator

A typical setup for a content creator:
JobSchedulePurpose
Daily Trends9 AM dailyQuick trend overview
Viral AlertsEvery 2 hoursCatch viral content fast
Deep ResearchMonday 10 AMWeekly content planning
Competitor WatchFriday 6 PMWeekend analysis
Total API calls: ~50-100 per week (varies by depth settings)