ops

Build a scheduled reporter in YAML

An agent that fires on a schedule, pulls together a digest, and posts it somewhere.

triggers.cronwebchannels.slack

The pattern

Cron triggers turn an agent into a scheduled worker. It fires on the cron, runs to completion, posts the result, exits. No always-on process, no separate scheduler, no manual deploy step. The schedule lives next to the agent that uses it.

What good looks like

Reliable execution at the configured time
Idempotent output, two runs in a row do not duplicate
Clean exit after the job, no orphan processes
Logs structured enough to debug a missed run

Common pitfalls

Forgetting timezone settings, runs at midnight UTC instead of local
Letting the agent loop forever if the data source is empty
No retry on transient failures
Posting to the wrong channel during a permission rotation

The minimum YAML to ship this

app.yaml

1modules:2  web: {}3  channels:4    config:5      slack: { bot_token: { credential: slack_bot } }67triggers:8  - id: weekly9    kind: cron10    schedule: "0 9 * * MON"11    target: { agent: reporter, message: "Generate the Monday digest." }1213agents:14  - id: reporter15    modules: [{web: [search, fetch]}, {channels: [slack_post]}]16    brain: { model: claude-haiku-4-5 }

Ship in 5 minutes

Install Digitorn and deploy this agent

# 1. install runtime
curl -sSL https://digitorn.ai/install | sh

# 2. save the YAML above to ~/.digitorn/apps/my-cron-reporter/app.yaml
mkdir -p ~/.digitorn/apps/my-cron-reporter
# paste the YAML into app.yaml

# 3. deploy
digitorn deploy my-cron-reporter

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The minimum YAML to ship this

app.yaml

1modules:2  web: {}3  channels:4    config:5      slack: { bot_token: { credential: slack_bot } }67triggers:8  - id: weekly9    kind: cron10    schedule: "0 9 * * MON"11    target: { agent: reporter, message: "Generate the Monday digest." }1213agents:14  - id: reporter15    modules: [{web: [search, fetch]}, {channels: [slack_post]}]16    brain: { model: claude-haiku-4-5 }

# 1. install runtime curl -sSL https://digitorn.ai/install | sh # 2. save the YAML above to ~/.digitorn/apps/my-cron-reporter/app.yaml mkdir -p ~/.digitorn/apps/my-cron-reporter # paste the YAML into app.yaml # 3. deploy digitorn deploy my-cron-reporter