> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://app.keystroke.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Schedules
> Run a workflow on a recurring schedule.
A schedule trigger runs a [workflow](/learn/workflows/overview) or [agent](/learn/agents/overview) on a recurring cron schedule. Use it for anything time-driven: a morning digest, an hourly sync, a nightly cleanup.
## Example requests
Ask your coding agent what should happen and how often. It can set up the schedule and attach it.
> "Every weekday at 8am, run the morning briefing workflow and post it to Slack."
> "On the first of each month, have the FP\&A agent review recurring charges and flag anything unused."
> "Every night, sync new rows from the form submissions table in Postgres into the reporting spreadsheet."
## Define a schedule
Use `defineCronSource` with a `slug` and a cron `schedule`, then attach a target.
```ts src/triggers/morning-check.ts theme={null}
import { defineCronSource } from "@keystrokehq/keystroke/trigger";
import workflow from "../workflows/morning-check";
export default defineCronSource({
slug: "morning-check",
schedule: "0 9 * * *",
}).attach({ workflow });
```
| Option | Required | What it does |
| ---------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `slug` | Yes | Stable trigger slug (used in the [attachment id](/learn/triggers/overview#attachment-id) and run history) |
| `schedule` | Yes | A cron expression for when the trigger fires |
## The cron schedule
The `schedule` is a standard cron expression. The common five-field form is `minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week`:
```ts theme={null}
schedule: "0 9 * * *" // every day at 09:00
schedule: "*/15 * * * *" // every 15 minutes
schedule: "0 0 * * 1" // every Monday at midnight
```
Named months and weekdays (`MON`, `JAN`) and shorthand nicknames (`@daily`, `@hourly`) are also accepted.
Cron expressions have no timezone option. They evaluate against the runtime clock: UTC on the hosted platform, and your machine's local time under `keystroke dev`. For a specific local time in production, convert it to UTC in the expression (for example, 9am US Eastern is `0 13 * * *` or `0 14 * * *` depending on daylight saving).
## Empty input
A schedule fires on time alone; there is no inbound payload. A schedule attached to a workflow runs it with an empty input (`{}`), so its workflow should accept an empty object:
```ts theme={null}
input: z.object({}),
```
A schedule attached to an agent runs it with a static `prompt` (or a `prompt()` function that ignores its argument):
```ts src/triggers/morning-check.ts theme={null}
import { defineCronSource } from "@keystrokehq/keystroke/trigger";
import support from "../agents/support";
export default defineCronSource({ slug: "morning-check", schedule: "0 9 * * *" }).attach({
agent: support,
prompt: "Run the morning check and summarize anything that needs attention.",
});
```
## Test it while building
You don't have to wait for the clock. Invoke the target directly while developing:
```bash theme={null}
keystroke workflows run morning-check --input '{}'
keystroke agents prompt support --message "Run the morning check."
```
After deploy, the platform fires the schedule on time — every tick runs the target unconditionally (cron has no filters). Inspect runs with `keystroke triggers runs list morning-check --workflow ` (or `--agent `).
## Next steps
Run on a schedule, but only when there's new work.
Run on inbound HTTP requests instead of a clock.
Agent prompts, transforms, and filtering.
Sources, attach, and attachment ids.