📅 Scheduled tasks in depth

New here? One scheduled task it’s an instruction you write once and the computer runs on its own at a set time—every day at 8 a.m., every Friday at 6 p.m.—without you opening or clicking anything. And it lives in a specific place: the desktop app.

New here? Desktop app means “desktop application”: a program with a window, menus, and buttons that you install on your computer and open with two clicks, like a browser. It’s the counterpart of the terminal — that black screen where you type commands instead of clicking—but both connect to the same agent. What changes is the storefront, not the employee.

Why does a scheduled task need the desktop app? Because someone has to keep an eye on the clock. The terminal exists only while the window is open: you close it, it disappears, and no one is left to remember that you have an appointment at 8 a.m. The desktop app stays installed and active in the background, and it’s what starts the work at the right time. It’s the difference between a helper who leaves at 6 p.m. and a doorman who sleeps in the building.

Creating a task is simpler than the name suggests: the desktop app has a scheduled tasks panel. You open the panel, write in Portuguese what needs to be done, choose the frequency and time, and save. That’s it — from then on, it’s the machine’s responsibility, not yours to remember.

A frequency is the heart of the scheduled task, and there are three options that cover almost everything a person needs. The choice isn't technical: it's about your lifestyle. Ask yourself how often the topic changes — and not how often you would like of looking at it.

Caption: look at the density of each row. The daily one fills the whole week; the weekly one appears once; the monthly one appears once in many weeks. The rarer the frequency, the more complete the instruction needs to be — because no one will remember the context a month later.

New here? Session is a conversation with the agent, from beginning to end. It remembers everything said during it; when the session closes, that memory goes away. And here’s the most important feature of the scheduled task: each run opens a session new. No run knows what the previous one did.

Think of an excellent contractor who works for you one hour a day—but it’s a different person every day, and they all read only the note you left taped to the door. If the note says “do the usual,” today’s person has no idea what “the usual” is. The scheduled task instruction is that note: it needs to be self-sufficient, in other words, whether it explains everything on its own, without relying on anything said before.

This sounds like an annoying limitation, and in part it is. But consider the other side: a clean session also means that yesterday's error won't contaminate today. If Tuesday's run got confused by a strange file, Wednesday's starts from scratch without carrying that confusion forward. That amnesia also offers protection.

There is a graceful way to handle when you really need continuity — and it’s the entire subject of module 6.4. The trick, in one sentence: if the agent can’t keep the memory in its head, it can keep it in a file. Today’s run writes what it did to a status file; tomorrow’s run starts by reading that file. Memory moves out of the session and onto the disk, where no one can erase it.

Caption: follow the dashed cyan arrow back—it never passes through the memory box. That’s why the instruction needs to explain itself: nothing crosses on the way back except what you wrote.

This is the question everyone asks as soon as they understand the concept — and it’s a good one. If the task is scheduled for 8 a.m. and the computer was off at 8 a.m., packed in a suitcase for a trip, what happens? The answer is reassuring: nothing is lost. The task stays marked as lost execution and runs as soon as the machine turns back on.

The analogy is mail. You’ve been away for a week; the letters weren’t left unsent or returned—they stayed in the mailbox waiting. You get home, open the mailbox, and everything is there. The difference is that the content may be stale: a summary of “today’s emails” generated four days late summarizes a “today” that’s already passed.

That’s why recovery is a safety net, not a free pass. It saves you from the occasional lapse — the day the machine restarted on its own, the morning you left before turning on the computer. It doesn’t replace a server that stays on 24 hours a day, and that’s exactly the difference Trail 4 explored when discussing moving off your laptop. If the routine is truly critical, it shouldn’t depend on you remembering to turn anything on.

Caption: the dashed gray circles are runs that didn’t happen; the pink ones are those same runs after recovery. The cyan circle at the end marks the return to the normal rhythm. Notice that the queue runs in sequence, not all at once.

Enough theory. Below is a complete request, ready to paste into the desktop app. It was written following everything you’ve learned so far: it explains itself, doesn’t depend on previous memory, says where to save it, and stays correct even if it runs late.

Crie uma tarefa agendada com estas configurações:

FREQUÊNCIA: diária
HORÁRIO: 08:00
NOME: Resumo matinal da caixa de entrada

INSTRUÇÃO (execute exatamente isto a cada disparo):
1. Abra minha caixa de entrada de e-mail em <seu endereco de e-mail>.
2. Olhe apenas as mensagens que chegaram desde a última vez
   que esta rotina rodou. Se não souber quando foi, use as
   últimas 24 horas.
3. Escolha as 5 mais importantes. Considere importante:
   - cobrança de resposta com prazo
   - mensagem de <pessoas ou empresas que voce nao pode ignorar>
   - qualquer coisa com "urgente", "prazo" ou "vencimento"
4. Para cada uma, escreva 2 linhas: quem mandou, e o que
   ela quer de mim.
5. Salve o resultado no arquivo
   <caminho da pasta onde voce quer o arquivo>/resumo-matinal.md
   Sobrescreva o arquivo anterior.
6. No fim do arquivo, escreva a data e a hora desta execução.

NÃO faça nada além disso: não responda e-mails, não apague
nada, não marque nada como lido.

Almost every scheduled task problem falls into one of these categories. It’s worth reading this before creating yours—each item here cost someone a wasted morning.