Cron Schema

Cron jobs are defined in ~/.arc/cron/jobs.yaml. The file contains a single top-level jobs key whose value is a map of job names to job objects.

Full example

# ~/.arc/cron/jobs.yaml
jobs:
  weekly-plan:
    description: "Generate weekly training plan every Sunday at 7 PM"
    schedule: "0 19 * * 0"
    agent: coach
    prompt: >
      It's a new week. Pull my Strava data, review what I completed vs planned,
      and generate the new weekly plan file. Save it as weeks/current.md.
    notify: discord
    enabled: true

  heartbeat:
    description: "Background log scanner"
    schedule: "*/30 * * * *"
    agent: coach
    model: haiku
    prompt: >
      Read HEARTBEAT.md and follow the instructions there strictly.
    notify: discord_on_urgent
    enabled: true

  daily-summary:
    description: "Evening training summary"
    schedule: "0 20 * * *"
    agent: coach
    prompt: "Summarize today's training session and update the daily log."
    enabled: false

Top-level structure

The file must have a jobs key at the top level. Each key under jobs is the job name (a string). Names are used in arc cron run <name>, arc cron enable <name>, arc cron disable <name>, arc cron history <name>, and log entries.

jobs:
  <job-name>:
    ...
  <job-name>:
    ...

Job fields

schedule

Type	Required
string	yes

A standard 5-field cron expression: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

schedule: "0 19 * * 0"    # Every Sunday at 7 PM
schedule: "*/30 * * * *"  # Every 30 minutes
schedule: "0 8 * * 1-5"   # Weekdays at 8 AM
schedule: "0 0 1 * *"     # First of every month at midnight

Parsed by APScheduler's CronTrigger.from_crontab(). All standard cron syntax is supported including ranges (1-5), lists (1,3,5), and step values (*/15). There is no seconds field.

---

agent

Type	Required
string	yes

The name of the agent that handles this job's prompt. Must match the filename stem of a YAML file in ~/.arc/agents/ (e.g., agent: coach references ~/.arc/agents/coach.yaml).

agent: coach

---

prompt

Type	Required
string	yes

The prompt text sent to the agent at each scheduled run. Supports YAML multi-line strings:

# Single line
prompt: "Summarize today's training."

# Block scalar (> folds newlines into spaces)
prompt: >
  It's a new week. Pull my Strava data, review what I completed vs planned,
  and generate the new weekly plan.

# Literal block scalar (| preserves newlines)
prompt: |
  Step 1: Check Strava for recent activities.
  Step 2: Compare against the plan.
  Step 3: Write the updated plan to weeks/current.md.

---

enabled

Type	Default
bool	true

Whether the job is scheduled when the daemon starts. Set to false to suspend a job without removing it.

enabled: true
enabled: false

Change with arc cron enable <name> or arc cron disable <name>. A daemon restart is required for the change to take effect.

---

notify

Type	Default
string or null	null (no notification)

Controls whether and when the job's output is posted to Discord after the run completes.

Value	Behavior
discord	Always post the full output to the agent's Discord channel
discord_on_urgent	Post only if the output contains the word "urgent" (case-insensitive)
omit or null	Never notify Discord

For Discord notifications to work, the agent must have discord.channel_id set and the Discord bot must be running.

notify: discord
notify: discord_on_urgent

---

model

Type	Default
string or null	null (use agent's default model)

Override the agent's default model for this job. Uses the same format as the agent model field: acpx aliases for Claude, ollama/... for Ollama.

The override is validated against allowed_models if the agent has that list configured.

model: haiku            # cheaper for frequent runs
model: ollama/qwen3:8b  # local model for privacy-sensitive runs

---

description

Type	Default
string	""

A human-readable description of the job. Shown in arc cron list. Has no functional effect.

description: "Generate weekly training plan every Sunday at 7 PM"

---

Managing jobs.yaml

The file can be edited directly or via arc cron subcommands:

Command	Effect
arc cron add	Appends a new job
arc cron remove <name>	Deletes a job
arc cron enable <name>	Sets enabled: true
arc cron disable <name>	Sets enabled: false
arc cron edit <name>	Opens the file in $EDITOR

All changes require a daemon restart: arc daemon restart