Scheduled Telegram Updates

Why This Matters

Up to now, your OpenClaw only talks when you talk to it. But the real power is having it proactively reach out with useful information on a schedule — a daily briefing, a weekly summary, or periodic check-ins.

OpenClaw has a built-in cron scheduler that can:

• Run a prompt on a schedule
• Deliver the output to your Telegram chat
• Use a fresh isolated session (so cron jobs don't pollute your conversation)

How Cron Syntax Works

Cron expressions look cryptic at first, but they follow a simple five-field pattern:

┌───────────── minute (0–59)
│ ┌─────────── hour (0–23)
│ │ ┌───────── day of month (1–31)
│ │ │ ┌─────── month (1–12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week (0–6, Sun=0)
│ │ │ │ │
0 7 * * 1-5  → "At 7:00 AM, Monday through Friday"

A * means "every" — so * * * * * means every minute of every day. Numbers narrow it down. 1-5 means Monday through Friday. */6 means every 6th unit.

Test It First

Before setting up a real schedule, verify the whole pipeline works by creating a cron job that fires two minutes from now.

Check the current time on your server:

ssh claw@YOUR_SERVER_IP
date

If the time is, say, 14:33, set a cron for 14:35:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron add \
  --name "Test cron" \
  --cron "35 14 * * *" \
  --tz "America/Chicago" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Say: Hello! This is a test cron job. It works!" \
  --announce \
  --channel telegram

Wait for the Telegram message to arrive. Once it does, remove the test job:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron remove --name "Test cron"

Setting Up Your Daily Briefing

The daily briefing is the most popular cron job. Your OpenClaw gathers information and sends you a summary every morning.

Option A: Via OpenClaw CLI

SSH into your server and use the OpenClaw CLI:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron add \
  --name "Morning briefing" \
  --cron "0 7 * * 1-5" \
  --tz "America/Chicago" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Give me a morning briefing. Include: the current date and day of week, any important news in AI and technology, a motivational thought for the day, and any reminders from my knowledge files." \
  --announce \
  --channel telegram

Breaking this down:

• --cron "0 7 * * 1-5" — runs at 7:00 AM, Monday through Friday
• --tz "America/Chicago" — change this to your timezone
• --session isolated — uses a fresh session, not your main conversation
• --announce — delivers the output to your chat
• --channel telegram — sends via Telegram

Option B: Via Config File

If you prefer editing config files, add this to your OpenClaw config:

cron:
  jobs:
    morning-briefing:
      schedule: "0 7 * * 1-5"
      timezone: "America/Chicago"
      session: isolated
      announce: true
      channel: telegram
      message: |
        Give me a morning briefing. Include:
        - Current date and day of week
        - Important news in AI and technology
        - A motivational thought
        - Any reminders from my knowledge files

Another Example: Weekly Review

Once your daily briefing is working reliably, consider adding a weekly review:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron add \
  --name "Weekly review" \
  --cron "0 18 * * 0" \
  --tz "America/Chicago" \
  --session isolated \
  --message "Summarize what we discussed this week. What were the main topics, decisions, and action items?" \
  --announce \
  --channel telegram

This runs at 6:00 PM every Sunday (0 18 * * 0).

Managing Cron Jobs

List all jobs:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron list

Remove a job:

docker exec openclaw openclaw cron remove --name "Morning briefing"

Tips

• Start with one cron job and make sure it works before adding more
• Always use --session isolated — you don't want scheduled tasks cluttering your main conversation context
• Cron jobs cost tokens. A daily briefing with Sonnet costs roughly $0.05–0.15 per run. If you want higher quality for your most important output, route it through Opus
• Cron times use 24-hour format — 7 PM is 19, not 7
• If a cron job doesn't fire, check logs with docker logs openclaw --tail 50 and look for scheduling errors

When You're Done

• At least one cron job configured (daily briefing recommended)
• Received a scheduled message in Telegram
• Can list and manage cron jobs
• Understand how to adjust schedule and timezone