⚙️ Automation
📖 Official
Cron Job Generator
Create and manage scheduled tasks with proper cron syntax and shell scripts
★★☆ Intermediate 15 min January 13, 2025
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Scenario
Setting up scheduled tasks requires understanding cron syntax and writing reliable scripts. Cowork can help generate properly formatted cron jobs with accompanying scripts.
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Prompt
I need to set up several scheduled tasks on my Mac: 1. Daily at 2 AM: Backup ~/Documents to external drive 2. Every Monday 9 AM: Generate weekly report from ~/Data/logs/ 3. Every 6 hours: Sync local folder with a remote server 4. First of month: Archive old files (>90 days) from ~/Downloads Please: - Generate the cron entries - Create the shell scripts for each task - Include error logging - Save everything to ~/Scripts/scheduled/
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Expected Result
Claude will generate: - Properly formatted cron entry file - Shell scripts for each task - Error logging - Installation and usage instructions
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Tips
- • Test scripts manually before scheduling
- • Use absolute paths in scripts (cron environment differs from interactive shell)
- • Consider using launchd on macOS for more control