---
title: Schedules | Letta Docs
description: Schedule one-time or recurring prompts for Letta agents
---

Scheduled tasks allow you to automate messages to your agent on pre-determined schedule. For example, you can have your agent prepare a custom briefing for you every morning at 9am, or have your agent triage your unread emails once an hour.

Your agent can schedule tasks itself. This is the best way to use schedules - simply ask your agent to create a schedule by chatting with it!

## Getting started

The easiest way to manually configure channels is via the [desktop app](/letta-agent/desktop-app/index.md). Simply navigate to the “Schedules” tab in the sidebar, and follow the on-screen instructions to set up a new schedule.

Scheduled tasks are **device-bound**. This means that if you create a schedule via the desktop app, your desktop app (or CLI session) will need to be open for the schedule to trigger.

If you want to make sure schedules run uninterrupted, regardless of whether your device is online or not, you can set up a 24/7 server (e.g. a home workstation, or remote VM) as a [remote device](/letta-agent/remote/index.md). You can configure schedules on remote devices with the Letta Code app as well - simply swap the selected device in the schedules menu.

## Setting up schedules via the CLI

You can use the `letta cron` subcommand to manually create schedules:

Terminal window

```
letta cron add \
  --agent agent-123 \
  --conversation default \
  --name "daily-review" \
  --description "Summarize recent code changes every morning" \
  --prompt "Review recent changes and summarize any issues." \
  --cron "0 9 * * *"
```

Use `--every 1d` for a once-daily task at local midnight. Use `--cron` when you need a fixed time of day like `9:00am`.

List tasks for the agent:

Terminal window

```
letta cron list --agent agent-123
```

If no listener is active when you add the task, Letta Agent still creates it, but warns that it will only execute once `letta server` is connected.

For the full command table, required fields, and defaults, see the [CLI reference](/letta-agent/cli-reference#scheduling/index.md).

## Current behavior and limits

These constraints are important enough to know before you depend on the feature:

- Tasks only execute while `letta server` is connected.
- One-shot tasks that are more than 5 minutes late are marked as missed.
- Letta Agent currently allows up to 50 active tasks per agent.
- Recurring tasks remain active until you delete them.
- `--every 1d` fires daily at local midnight. Use `--cron` for a fixed time of day.
- `--at` values are interpreted in your local timezone.
- Raw cron expressions are evaluated in the local timezone by default.
- All `letta cron` commands print JSON, so they work well in scripts and wrappers.

## Examples

### Daily review

Terminal window

```
letta cron add \
  --agent agent-123 \
  --name "daily-review" \
  --description "Review recent changes every morning" \
  --prompt "Review recent changes and summarize any issues." \
  --cron "0 9 * * 1-5"
```

### One-time reminder

Terminal window

```
letta cron add \
  --agent agent-123 \
  --conversation default \
  --name "deploy-reminder" \
  --description "Remind me to validate staging before deploy" \
  --prompt "Check staging health, review recent failures, and summarize anything blocking deploy." \
  --at "in 45m"
```

### Frequent recurring check

Terminal window

```
letta cron add \
  --agent agent-123 \
  --name "log-watch" \
  --description "Check logs every five minutes" \
  --prompt "Inspect the latest logs and flag anything unusual." \
  --every 5m
```

## Troubleshooting

- **My task never ran**

  - Make sure `letta server` was connected when the schedule should have fired.
  - Run `letta cron list --agent <id>` and confirm the task is still active.

- **My one-time task disappeared without running**

  - If the listener was down for long enough, the task may have been marked as missed.