CronCreate tool description
CLI Claude Code, interactive mode, seeded with anonymous feature flags, v2.1.283. The text the model is given for this tool, line by line, with each line marked against the previous capture taken the same way. 27 model strings share this prompt, byte for byte.
Lines402,595 characters
Moved+0−0 against v2.1.282
Sent to27model strings get this description
Copies1distinct descriptions under this name
Parameters42 of them required
Every tool→every description on this arm
Plain text · sha256 0ef63049ccf6
The description, line by line
40 lines Line numbers are v2.1.282 on the left and this capture on the right.
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Schedule a prompt to be enqueued at a future time. Use for both recurring schedules and one-shot reminders.
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Uses standard 5-field cron in the user's local timezone: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week. "0 9 * * *" means 9am local — no timezone conversion needed.
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## One-shot tasks (recurring: false)
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For "remind me at X" or "at <time>, do Y" requests — fire once then auto-delete.
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Pin minute/hour/day-of-month/month to specific values:
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"remind me at 2:30pm today to check the deploy" → cron: "30 14 <today_dom> <today_month> *", recurring: false
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"tomorrow morning, run the smoke test" → cron: "57 8 <tomorrow_dom> <tomorrow_month> *", recurring: false
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## Recurring jobs (recurring: true, the default)
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For "every N minutes" / "every hour" / "weekdays at 9am" requests:
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"*/5 * * * *" (every 5 min), "0 * * * *" (hourly), "0 9 * * 1-5" (weekdays at 9am local)
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## Avoid the :00 and :30 minute marks when the task allows it
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Every user who asks for "9am" gets `0 9`, and every user who asks for "hourly" gets `0 *` — which means requests from across the planet land on the API at the same instant. When the user's request is approximate, pick a minute that is NOT 0 or 30:
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"every morning around 9" → "57 8 * * *" or "3 9 * * *" (not "0 9 * * *")
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"hourly" → "7 * * * *" (not "0 * * * *")
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"in an hour or so, remind me to..." → pick whatever minute you land on, don't round
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Only use minute 0 or 30 when the user names that exact time and clearly means it ("at 9:00 sharp", "at half past", coordinating with a meeting). When in doubt, nudge a few minutes early or late — the user will not notice, and the fleet will.
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## Session-only
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Jobs live only in this Claude session — nothing is written to disk, and the job is gone when Claude exits.
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## Not for live watching
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CronCreate re-runs a prompt at fixed wall-clock intervals. To watch a log file, process, or command output and be notified the moment something changes, use the Monitor tool instead — Monitor streams events as they happen; cron polls on a schedule.
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## Runtime behavior
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Jobs only fire while the REPL is idle (not mid-query). The scheduler adds a small deterministic jitter on top of whatever you pick: recurring tasks fire up to 10% of their period late (max 15 min); one-shot tasks landing on :00 or :30 fire up to 90 s early. Picking an off-minute is still the bigger lever.
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Recurring tasks auto-expire after 7 days — they fire one final time, then are deleted. This bounds session lifetime. Tell the user about the 7-day limit when scheduling recurring jobs.
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Returns a job ID you can pass to CronDelete.
What it accepts
4 parameters The JSON parameter schema sent beside this description, 977 characters of it. Name, type, then whether the client marked it required.cron
string
required
Standard 5-field cron expression in local time: "M H DoM Mon DoW" (e.g. "*/5 * * * *" = every 5 minutes, "30 14 28 2 *" = Feb 28 at 2:30pm local once).
durable
boolean
optional
Has no effect — durable persistence is not available. All jobs are session-only (in-memory, gone when this Claude session ends).
prompt
string
required
The prompt to enqueue at each fire time.
recurring
boolean
optional
true (default) = fire on every cron match until deleted or auto-expired after 7 days. false = fire once at the next match, then auto-delete. Use false for "remind me at X" one-shot requests with pinned minute/hour/dom/month.
sha256 d439aae1e930 · the schema as the client sent it:
{
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"additionalProperties": false,
"properties": {
"cron": {
"description": "Standard 5-field cron expression in local time: \"M H DoM Mon DoW\" (e.g. \"*/5 * * * *\" = every 5 minutes, \"30 14 28 2 *\" = Feb 28 at 2:30pm local once).",
"type": "string"
},
"durable": {
"description": "Has no effect \u2014 durable persistence is not available. All jobs are session-only (in-memory, gone when this Claude session ends).",
"type": "boolean"
},
"prompt": {
"description": "The prompt to enqueue at each fire time.",
"type": "string"
},
"recurring": {
"description": "true (default) = fire on every cron match until deleted or auto-expired after 7 days. false = fire once at the next match, then auto-delete. Use false for \"remind me at X\" one-shot requests with pinned minute/hour/dom/month.",
"type": "boolean"
}
},
"required": [
"cron",
"prompt"
],
"type": "object"
}