Routines: work on a schedule

A Routine is a standing job you set up once and let run on its own — your “every weekday at 8am, summarize the overnight inbox” worker.

What you’ll learn

• The three ingredients of every Routine: who, what, and when.
• The four trigger types, and which one to reach for.
• How to stand up a morning brief and a weekly report.

The three ingredients

Every Routine is just three choices:

1. Who — the worker that runs.
2. What — a saved prompt template, the instruction it runs each time.
3. When — the trigger that sets it off.

Pick a trigger

• Cron — a schedule, like “every weekday at 8am”. Cron Routines register the moment the app boots, so they fire on time without you touching anything.
• Watch folder — fires when a file lands in a folder you’re watching.
• Webhook — fires when an outside system calls a secret URL (wire in Zapier or n8n).
• Manual — no automation; you run it on demand.

Build a morning brief

1. Create a Routine, choose your assistant worker, and write a prompt like “Summarize my overnight email and flag anything urgent.”
2. Set the trigger to cron, weekdays at 08:00.
3. For a weekly report, repeat with a different prompt and a Monday-morning schedule.

Cron, in plain words

You don’t have to memorize cron syntax — the app shows a human-readable version (“every day at 08:00”) right alongside it.

Routine vs Plan

Reach for a Routine when the same job repeats. Reach for a Plan for a one-time effort with several dependent steps.

Three Routines worth having

The test of a good Routine is simple: would you miss it if it stopped? These three usually pass.

The Monday briefing. “List every task still open across my Companies, flag anything overdue or blocked, summarise what was finished last week, and end with the one thing you’d focus on first — with a one-line reason.” Cron, Mondays at 08:00. This is the Routine that makes an AI workforce feel like it’s actually working for you, because it’s the one that tells you what everything else did.

The folder that processes itself. Point a watch folder Routine at wherever you drop invoices, receipts or reports. “For each new file, extract the date, counterparty and amount, append a row to the running table, and file the document in the Library.” Now the admin task happens when the file lands, not when you eventually get to it.

The Friday wrap-up you can forward. “Summarise what got done this week, what slipped and why, and the top three for next week — written as an update I could send to a client without editing.” Cron, Fridays at 16:00. The “without editing” constraint is doing real work in that prompt: it forces a tone and a completeness the vague version never produces.

Start with one, and read it every day

A Routine you don’t read is worse than no Routine — it’s spending tokens producing something nobody sees. Stand up one, read it daily for two weeks, and only add a second once the first has proven it’s worth opening.

Recap

A Routine pairs one worker with one prompt and a trigger, then runs itself. Cron Routines are how you wake up to a finished brief. Next, meet the worker who reviews your workspace without even being asked.

📖 Reference in the docs: Routines · Background & proactivity

➡️ Next: Proactive Theodor