Cron Examples

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

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

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

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

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

Setting Up Cron Jobs

Via OpenClaw Chat (Recommended)

Just tell your assistant what you want. No JSON required:

Daily Trend Monitoring

“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”

Topic Research

“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”

Competitor Tracking

“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”

Alerts

“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”

Content Planning

“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.

Via CLI

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

Via Config

Add to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

{
  "cron": {
    "jobs": [
      {
        "name": "Daily Trend Check",
        "schedule": { "kind": "cron", "expr": "0 9 * * *" },
        ...
      }
    ]
  }
}

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.

Example Workflow: Content Creator

A typical setup for a content creator:

Job	Schedule	Purpose
Daily Trends	9 AM daily	Quick trend overview
Viral Alerts	Every 2 hours	Catch viral content fast
Deep Research	Monday 10 AM	Weekly content planning
Competitor Watch	Friday 6 PM	Weekend analysis

Total API calls: ~50-100 per week (varies by depth settings)

Get Started

OpenClaw Integration

Overview

Daily Trend Check

Weekly Deep Research

Viral Content Alert

Competitor Watch

Setting Up Cron Jobs

Via OpenClaw Chat (Recommended)

Via CLI

Via Config

Tips

Example Workflow: Content Creator

​Overview

​Daily Trend Check

​Weekly Deep Research

​Viral Content Alert

​Competitor Watch

​Setting Up Cron Jobs

​Via OpenClaw Chat (Recommended)

​Via CLI

​Via Config

​Tips

​Example Workflow: Content Creator

Overview

Daily Trend Check

Weekly Deep Research

Viral Content Alert

Competitor Watch

Setting Up Cron Jobs

Via OpenClaw Chat (Recommended)

Via CLI

Via Config

Tips

Example Workflow: Content Creator