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intermediateAutomation25 min

Automate a recurring workflow

Turn a manual routine into a scheduled agent task that runs on its own and reports back.

Prerequisites

  • A working agent (see "Set up your first OpenClaw agent")
  • A task you repeat regularly

Once you have a working agent, the next win is handing it a repetitive job and letting it run on a schedule.

Pick a job worth automating

Good candidates are checks you do on a cadence: a morning summary, a status poll, a cleanup pass. Start with something low-risk and read-only.

Describe the task clearly

Write the instruction as if briefing a teammate — objective, inputs, and what a good result looks like.

Every morning at 8am: check the deploy status,
summarize any failures, and post the summary to #ops.

Schedule it

Create a scheduled routine so the agent fires without you.

openclaw schedule create "0 8 * * *" "morning deploy summary"

Warning

Give scheduled tasks a tightly scoped prompt. An open-ended instruction that runs unattended can wander — be explicit about what's in and out of scope.

Verify and iterate

Watch the first few runs. Tighten the wording wherever the output drifts from what you wanted.

Tip

Have the task report even when there's nothing to do ("all green"). Silence is ambiguous — a heartbeat tells you it actually ran.

Next steps

  • Explore host-based routing to publish results to a site
  • Add memory so the agent remembers past runs