Schedules run a custom prompt on a cron schedule. The prompt executes via your MCP client automatically, so recurring workflows like morning briefings or weekly reviews happen without manual intervention.
Prerequisites
- An active paid subscription
- At least one custom prompt (see Prompts)
Creating a schedule
Ask your AI client to create a schedule using natural language:
“3ngram: Create a schedule called weekly-review that runs my briefing prompt every Monday at 9am New York time”
Parameters
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|
name | Yes | Lowercase, alphanumeric/hyphens/underscores, 1-63 chars |
cron_expr | Yes | Standard 5-field cron expression (minimum interval: 1 hour) |
prompt_name | Yes | Name of an existing custom prompt to run |
context_template | No | Template text injected into the prompt at execution time |
timezone | No | IANA timezone (default: UTC). E.g. America/New_York, Europe/London |
Cron expression examples
| Expression | Meaning |
|---|
0 8 * * 1 | Every Monday at 08:00 |
0 9 * * * | Every day at 09:00 |
0 */2 * * * | Every 2 hours |
0 17 * * 5 | Every Friday at 17:00 |
Managing schedules
List schedules
“3ngram: Show my schedules”
Update a schedule
“3ngram: Change my weekly-review schedule to run at 10am instead”
You can update cron_expr, prompt_name, context_template, timezone, or toggle the schedule on and off.
Disable or enable
“3ngram: Disable my weekly-review schedule”
“3ngram: Enable my weekly-review schedule”
Disabling a schedule pauses execution without deleting it. Re-enable when you’re ready to resume.
Delete a schedule
“3ngram: Delete the weekly-review schedule”
Deleting is permanent. If you just want to pause, disable instead.
Context templates
The context_template parameter is optional text injected into the prompt when it runs. Use it to scope a generic prompt to a specific project or focus area.
For example, if you have a briefing prompt, you could create two schedules with different context templates:
“3ngram: Create a schedule called engram-briefing that runs my briefing prompt every morning at 9am with context ‘Focus on the engram project’”
“3ngram: Create a schedule called climbr-briefing that runs my briefing prompt every morning at 9:30am with context ‘Focus on the climbr project’”
The same prompt runs twice, scoped differently each time.
Schedules require a paid subscription. The minimum schedule interval is 1 hour.
