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name: schedule-recipe description: "Turn 'run this every Friday at 4pm' into a working, copy-paste schedule on the user's actual runner. Use when asked to schedule a recurring AI task, set up a routine or cron job for a skill, automate a weekly report, or wire a skill into n8n or GitHub Actions. Produces the exact setup for the chosen runner plus the prompt to run, failure alerting, and a first-run test plan."

Schedule Recipe Skill

Convert a recurring intent — "competitive briefing every Monday 8am" — into the concrete, copy-paste setup for whatever runner the user actually has, with failure handling so it degrades loudly, not silently.

What This Skill Produces

• A runner recommendation (or confirmation of the user's choice) with the reason
• The exact setup — command, cron expression, or workflow file — ready to paste
• The run prompt: what the scheduled agent should do each cycle, including which skill to load
• Failure alerting and a first-run test plan

Required Inputs

Ask for (if not already provided):

• What should run — which skill or task, and what inputs it reads each cycle
• Cadence and timezone — "every Friday 4pm" means nothing without one
• Where it can run — Claude Code (routines/loops), a server with cron, n8n, or GitHub Actions
• Where the output should land — file in a repo, Slack/email, a Brain folder, a PR

Runner Selection

Pick the simplest runner the user already has, in this order:

Runner	Choose when	Setup shape
Claude Code routine (/schedule)	The user lives in Claude Code and the task needs an agent (reads repos, runs skills)	A scheduled cloud agent with the run prompt
Claude Code /loop	Same-session polling or short-lived recurrence, not a standing schedule	/loop <interval> <command>
GitHub Actions cron	Inputs and output both live in a repo; team wants runs versioned and reviewable	A workflow YAML with schedule: trigger
n8n / Make	The trigger or output is a SaaS app (Slack, CRM, sheets)	A workflow calling the skills REST API
System cron	A server exists and the task is a script	A crontab line invoking the CLI

State the choice and the runner-up. If the user names a runner, use it — don't relitigate.

The Run Prompt

Every recipe includes the prompt the scheduled run executes. It must contain:

1. The skill to load and the artifact to produce
2. The sources to read this cycle — explicit paths/URLs, not "the usual"
3. Where to write the result and how to mark the edition (date, sources read)
4. What to do on missing sources — name the failure behaviour, never fabricate
5. Delta instruction if recurring: read the previous edition first and report changes (see delta-briefing)

Output Format

Schedule Recipe: [task] — [cadence]

Runner: [choice] — because [one line]. Runner-up: [alternative] if [condition].

Setup (copy-paste):

[the exact command / crontab line / workflow YAML / n8n outline]

Run prompt:

[the full prompt the scheduled agent executes each cycle]

Failure alerting: [how a failed/skipped run becomes visible — e.g. the run posts an error note to the same channel it would post the brief].

First-run test: trigger one run manually now; check [the two or three things that prove it worked] before trusting the schedule.

Quality Checks

• The cron expression / schedule matches the stated cadence and timezone — show the conversion
• The setup block is genuinely copy-paste: no <placeholders> left except secrets, which are named
• The run prompt names explicit sources and an output destination
• A failed run is visible somewhere a human already looks
• The recipe includes a manual first-run test, not just "it'll fire Monday"

Anti-Patterns

• Do not pick a runner the user doesn't have — a perfect n8n flow is useless without n8n
• Do not write a run prompt that says "as usual" or relies on the agent remembering prior runs without a stored previous edition
• Do not schedule without failure alerting — silence and success must not look identical
• Do not default to hourly/daily to "be safe" — match the cadence to how often the inputs change
• Do not put secrets inline in the setup block — reference the runner's secret store

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Schedule a recurring AI task."
• "Set up a routine."
• "Automate a weekly report."
• "Wire a skill into n8n or GitHub Actions."