> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.wednesdayai.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Reminders and schedules

> Ask your AI to remind you, report on a schedule, or run standing jobs at exact times — and learn how schedules differ from the AI's own regular check-ins.

# Reminders and schedules

Your AI has a built-in scheduler. Ask for anything from "remind me in 20 minutes" to "every weekday at 9am, summarise my inbox" and it will run at the time you asked — even if you are not chatting at that moment. Results arrive in your chat (or wherever you tell the AI to send them).

Schedules keep working across restarts and updates: once set, a job stays set until it finishes (for one-off reminders) or until you cancel it (for repeating jobs).

## Ask for a one-off reminder

<Steps>
  <Step title="Say when and what">
    "Remind me in 20 minutes to join the standup." Or use a clock time: "At 4pm, remind me to call the bank." You can name a timezone: "At 9am London time."

    **What you should see:** the AI confirms the reminder and the time.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Get the reminder">
    At the appointed time the AI runs the job and sends you the reminder.

    **What you should see:** the reminder message arrives in the chat where you set it.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Note>
  One-off reminders tidy themselves away once they have fired — you never need to clean them up.
</Note>

## Set up a repeating job

<Steps>
  <Step title="Describe the rhythm">
    "Every weekday at 9am, summarise overnight emails." "Every Monday at noon, draft a weekly plan." "Every day at 8pm, check tomorrow's weather and tell me if I need an umbrella."

    **What you should see:** the AI confirms the schedule.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Choose where results go (optional)">
    By default you get a short summary in the chat where you set the job up. You can also point it elsewhere: "Send the morning summary to the team channel."

    **What you should see:** results arrive where you asked. If a run produces nothing worth saying, you may hear nothing at all — silence usually means "nothing to report", not "it forgot".
  </Step>

  <Step title="Adjust or cancel any time">
    "Move the morning summary to 10am." "Stop the weekly plan."

    **What you should see:** the AI confirms the change.
  </Step>
</Steps>

<Tip>
  Jobs set for the top of every hour ("every hour on the hour") can fire up to five minutes late on purpose — it spreads the load so many jobs do not all fire in the same second. If you need a job at a precise minute, pick a specific time like 9:05.
</Tip>

## Cron vs heartbeat

Your AI can act on two different kinds of timing, and it helps to know which is which:

* **Schedules (cron jobs)** are things **you** ask for: "remind me at 4pm", "every weekday at 9am". They run at the exact times you chose, and each job does exactly what you asked.
* **Check-ins (heartbeat)** are the AI keeping an eye on things **on its own** — it wakes up every so often (how often is set by whoever runs your AI, commonly every half hour), glances at its to-do list, and only messages you if something actually needs your attention.

| You want                                                 | Use                                                              |
| -------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Something at an exact time ("9am sharp")                 | A schedule — ask for it in chat                                  |
| A one-off reminder ("in 20 minutes")                     | A schedule — ask for it in chat                                  |
| The AI to watch for things and only ping you when needed | Check-ins — ask whoever runs your AI to set up its check-in list |
| A noisy job kept out of your main chat                   | A schedule, with results sent elsewhere                          |

Rules of thumb:

* **Exact time or one-off** → schedule.
* **"Keep an eye on my inbox and tell me if something's urgent"** → check-ins — that is a repeated glance, not a report at a fixed hour.
* **Big regular reports** → schedules; they run as standalone jobs and do not clutter your conversation.

They combine well: check-ins handle the frequent watching, schedules handle the fixed daily and weekly deliveries.

## Troubleshooting

### A reminder or report never arrived

1. Check the chat where you set it up — results normally land there, not in an unrelated conversation.
2. Ask the AI directly: "Did the morning summary run today?"
3. If it ran but delivered nothing worth saying, silence was correct — ask the AI to always send a confirmation if you prefer.
4. Still missing? Ask whoever runs your AI to check the schedule list and the job history; jobs that keep failing get slowed down deliberately (retried with growing pauses) so they do not spam a broken service.

### A job fired at the wrong time

* Did you name a timezone? Without one, times follow the clock of the machine your AI runs on.
* Top-of-hour jobs can be up to five minutes late by design (see the tip above).

## Related

* [Background tasks](/users/tasks) — how these jobs survive restarts and retry failures
* [Memory](/users/memory) — ask your AI to remember standing preferences, like where reports should go