Automations: Scheduled Jobs, Webhooks, and Gmail Triggers

Automations serve as the scheduler built into OpenClaw. Jobs are stored persistently by the scheduler, which wakes the agent at the appropriate moment and can route output to a chat channel, a webhook, or no destination at all.

The openclaw automations CLI is how you manage automations; openclaw cron still works as an alias for those same commands.

Quick start

Add a one-shot reminder

openclaw automations create "2027-02-01T16:00:00Z" \
  --name "Reminder" \
  --session main \
  --system-event "Reminder: check the automations docs draft" \
  --wake now \
  --delete-after-run

Check your jobs

openclaw automations list
openclaw automations get <job-id>
openclaw automations show <job-id>

See run history

openclaw automations runs <job-id>

Where each section moved

What follows is an index page. Content for each section now lives on a child page, and all anchors from the former single-page version continue to resolve here.

Runtime model and promotion

How automations work, The runtime model, the run lifecycle, and how jobs get promoted.

• How automations work
• Isolated run hardening
• Run reconciliation
• Promoting a repeated job into an automation

Schedule and trigger sections

Automation schedules, Kinds of schedules, cron rules, pacing, and condition watchers.

• Schedule types
• Heartbeat task migration
• Monitoring policies
• Job scratch and quiet results
• Stream sources
• Dynamic cadence (pacing)
• /loop chat shortcut
• Day-of-month and day-of-week use OR logic
• Event triggers (condition watchers)

Payload and execution sections

Automation payloads, Payload kinds, agent-turn flags, and the execution styles available for sessions.

• Payloads
• Agent-turn options
• --message
• --model
• --fallbacks
• --clear-fallbacks
• --clear-model
• --thinking
• --clear-thinking
• --light-context
• --tools
• Command payloads
• Script payloads
• Execution styles
• Codex apps in scheduled automations
• Main session vs current vs isolated vs custom
• What 'fresh session' means for isolated jobs
• Unattended run contract
• Subagent and Discord delivery

Delivery sections

Automation delivery, Delivery modes, notifications when something fails, and the language of output.

• Delivery and output
• Failure notifications
• Output language

Management and configuration sections

Manage automations, management commands, CLI examples, run history, and configuration keys.

• CLI examples
• One-shot reminder
• Recurring isolated job
• Model and thinking override
• Webhook output
• Command output
• Managing jobs
• Conversational management
• CLI management
• Configuration
• Retry behavior
• Maintenance
• Legacy store migration

Inbound webhook sections

Inbound webhooks, Gateway HTTP hooks that external callers can invoke.

• Webhooks
• Enable and test an agent hook
• Authentication
• POST /hooks/wake
• POST /hooks/agent
• Mapped hooks (POST /hooks/<name>)
• Verify and troubleshoot hook requests

Gmail sections

Gmail PubSub triggers, trigger a Gmail inbox through Google Pub/Sub.

• Gmail PubSub integration
• Configure a restricted Gmail reader (recommended)
• Authenticate the reader model
• Connect Gmail transport
• Verify the reader boundary
• Gateway auto-start
• Manual one-time setup
• Select the GCP project
• Create topic and grant Gmail push access
• Start the watch
• Gmail model override

Troubleshooting sections

Automation troubleshooting, a command ladder plus the usual shapes of automation failure.

• Troubleshooting
• Command ladder
• Automations not firing
• Job fired but no delivery
• Automations or heartbeat appear to prevent /new-style rollover
• Timezone gotchas

Related

• Automation, every automation mechanism, compared at a glance
• Heartbeat migration, move periodic monitoring onto editable jobs
• Standing intents, work triggered by events rather than by a schedule
• Standing orders, the operating authority under which a scheduled run acts
• Timezone, configuring timezones