Schedule: Cloud Execution

/schedule runs Claude Code tasks in the cloud on a recurring schedule. Unlike /loop, your local machine does not need to stay on. Tasks execute on Vercel’s infrastructure and can run for up to a week without any local process keeping them alive.

Syntax

# Schedule a recurring task
/schedule "[cron expression]" "[command]"

# Common shorthand intervals
/schedule daily "generate a daily standup summary from yesterday's commits"
/schedule weekly "audit all open GitHub issues and triage by priority"
/schedule "every monday 9am" "kick off code review for all PRs opened last week"

# View all scheduled tasks
/schedule --list

# Cancel a scheduled task
/schedule --cancel <task-id>

# Pause without deleting
/schedule --pause <task-id>
/schedule --resume <task-id>

# View run history for a task
/schedule --history <task-id>

Cron expression format follows standard 5-field syntax: minute hour day month weekday.

# Examples
/schedule "0 9 * * 1"   "..."   # Every Monday at 9am
/schedule "0 8 * * *"   "..."   # Every day at 8am
/schedule "0 0 * * 0"   "..."   # Every Sunday at midnight
/schedule "*/30 * * * *" "..."  # Every 30 minutes (minimum interval)

Duration

A scheduled task can run for up to 1 week per schedule configuration. For tasks that need to run indefinitely, re-schedule them — a /schedule weekly task that reschedules itself on each run effectively runs forever.

Individual task execution time is capped at 10 minutes per run. If a single Claude Code session exceeds this, the run is marked as timed out and the next scheduled interval proceeds normally.

Setup Requirements

/schedule requires:

Claude.ai Pro plan — scheduling is a Pro-tier feature
Vercel account (connected via Claude Code settings) — tasks run on Vercel Functions
Authentication: run claude auth and ensure your Pro account is linked

# Verify your account and plan
claude auth status

# Connect Vercel account (one-time setup)
claude setup vercel

Note: /schedule is not available on the free tier. Use /loop for local scheduling without a Pro subscription.

How It Works

When you create a scheduled task, Claude Code:

Registers the schedule and command with the cloud scheduler (Vercel Cron)
At each trigger time, spins up a serverless Claude Code session
Executes the command with access to your connected repositories and tools
Writes a run log to your Claude.ai account dashboard
Sends a notification (email or in-app) if the run fails or produces an important result

The cloud session has the same tool access as your local Claude Code session: file read/write on connected repos, GitHub API, web browsing. It does not have access to your local filesystem.

`/schedule` vs `/loop`

Feature	`/schedule`	`/loop`
Execution location	Cloud (Vercel)	Local machine
Machine must be on	No	Yes
Max duration	1 week	3 days
Requires Pro plan	Yes	No
Local file access	No	Yes
Use case	Long-running, off-hours	Dev tasks, local monitoring

Choose /schedule when the task should run while you sleep, travel, or work on something else. Choose /loop when the task needs local file access or you want no cloud dependency.

Examples

1. Weekly Dependency Audit

/schedule "0 8 * * 1" "run npm audit and check package.json for outdated dependencies. Create a GitHub issue listing: critical vulnerabilities, major version updates available, and packages not updated in 6+ months. Label it 'maintenance'."

Every Monday morning, you wake up to a pre-populated maintenance issue with exactly what needs attention.

2. Monday Morning Code Review Kickoff

/schedule "every monday 9am" "list all PRs opened since last Friday. For each PR: summarize the changes in 2 sentences, estimate review complexity (S/M/L), and identify the best reviewer based on file ownership in CODEOWNERS. Post a structured review queue as a comment on each PR."

Your team’s Monday review triage happens automatically before standup.

3. Daily Standup Report

/schedule daily "look at yesterday's commits across all repos in the org. Group by author. For each author, summarize what they shipped in 3 bullet points. Post the summary to the #standup Slack channel via the Slack MCP."

Async standup — no meeting, no manual writing, just the facts from the commit history.

Boris’s Workflow

Boris uses /schedule for week-long autonomous tasks that span multiple days of work:

Architecture drift detection: A weekly schedule scans the codebase for patterns that diverge from the documented architecture. When it finds drift (a service calling another service it shouldn’t, a module importing from a forbidden layer), it opens a GitHub issue with the specific violation and a suggested fix.
Release preparation: A Monday schedule kicks off release prep — bumping versions, generating changelogs from commits since last tag, creating a draft release PR, and requesting reviews from the relevant owners.

These tasks run without Boris touching them. The results show up as GitHub issues and PRs in his normal workflow, indistinguishable from work a teammate did.

Gotchas

Pro plan required. The free tier does not support /schedule. If you run the command without a Pro plan, Claude Code will show an upgrade prompt.

Cloud cost. Each scheduled run consumes compute on Vercel. Claude.ai Pro includes a generous allocation, but very frequent schedules (every 30 minutes) or long-running tasks can approach limits. Monitor usage in the Claude.ai dashboard.

No local filesystem access. Scheduled tasks run in a cloud sandbox. They can access connected GitHub repos, call APIs, and use MCPs configured for cloud execution. They cannot read files from your laptop.

Timezone handling. Schedules run in UTC by default. Specify a timezone explicitly if you want local-time scheduling:

/schedule "0 9 * * 1 [America/New_York]" "..."
/schedule "0 9 * * 1 [Asia/Tokyo]" "..."

Failed runs. If a run fails (network error, API rate limit, task timeout), Claude Code retries once after 5 minutes. If the retry also fails, the run is marked as failed and you receive a notification. The schedule continues on the next interval regardless.

Local Recurring Execution: /loop