Hermes Agent Cron Job: Schedule, Stop and Fix Scheduled Tasks

Hermes Agent cron job scheduling lets your agent do work on a timer: a morning brief, an hourly check, a weekly report, delivered to your chat or a file. You can set one up by just asking, with /cron in chat, or with hermes cron create. The newest change (26 October 2026) lets you stop a running job and choose what happens to missed runs right in the Hermes Desktop job editor. Below is how to create jobs, which model they run on, how to stop one, how missed runs work, and how to fix a job that won’t fire. My video is right under this intro.

What can a Hermes Agent cron job do?

According to the Scheduled Tasks (Cron) docs, a cron job can:

• Run once or on a repeating schedule.
• Be paused, resumed, edited, triggered early or removed.
• Load one or more skills before it runs.
• Deliver results to the chat it came from, to local files, or to platforms like Telegram.
• Run a plain script with no-agent mode: no model, no tokens, just the script’s output.
• Fire on an event through a webhook, instead of waiting for the clock.

Hermes manages all of this through one tool, cronjob_manage, which is why you can create and change jobs just by asking.

How to create a cron job

In chat:

/cron add "in 30m" "Remind me to check the build"
/cron add "every 2h" "Check server status"
/cron add "every 1h" "Summarize new feed items" --skill blogwatcher

From the CLI:

hermes cron create "every 2h" "Check server status"
hermes cron create "0 7 * * 1-5" "Morning brief"

Or just say it: “Every morning at 9am, check Hacker News for AI news and send me a summary on Telegram.” Hermes creates the job for you.

One safety rule: a cron run can’t create more cron jobs. Hermes switches cron tools off inside cron runs so a job can never start a runaway loop.

Which model does a cron job use?

At the moment a job fires, Hermes checks in this order:

• A per-job pin: hermes cron create/edit --model … --provider …, or --pin to lock in your current model.
• A cron default: hermes config set cron.model <name> sets one model for every unpinned job.
• Your main model from hermes model if neither is set.

A job can also pin its own reasoning effort, for example --reasoning-effort high for a heavy weekly analysis and minimal for a cheap hourly check.

New: stop a running cron job

pause only stops future runs; a run already going keeps going. To stop the current run without touching the schedule:

hermes cron cancel 
hermes cron cancel  --reason "wedged on the staging API"

Script jobs have their whole process tree shut down. Agent jobs stop at the next checkpoint. The run is recorded as cancelled with your reason, it doesn’t send a failure notice, and it doesn’t count towards the job’s failure streak.

In Hermes Desktop, a job with a run in progress now shows a Stop button in its header. It reads Stopping… until the run is cancelled, then a Run cancelled message confirms it.

New: choose what happens to missed runs

If Hermes was down when a job was due, a recurring job catches up once when it’s back: one missed slot fires one time, and a long outage collapses into a single catch-up run. You can change that per job:

hermes cron create "0 7 * * 1-5" "Morning brief" --catch-up off   # a stale brief is useless: skip
hermes cron edit  --catch-up on                                # always run once on return

The Desktop job editor has the same choice under Missed runs: Use the default, Run once when back or Skip them.

Fine control: a missed job only runs late inside a catch-up window of half its period, between 2 minutes and 2 hours. --grace-minutes overrides that (0 means never catch up). Every skipped or collapsed slot shows as a missed ×N row, so nothing disappears silently.

Why a Hermes cron job doesn’t run

• The gateway is off. Agent jobs run inside the gateway. With no gateway running they’re skipped with a logged reason and fire after hermes gateway start.
• It’s blocked by its settings. Before each run Hermes checks the API key, skills, delivery targets and MCP servers. If something is wrong the job shows blocked_config, sends one alert, and makes no model call, so a broken job never spends tokens.
• A one-shot missed its window. One-time reminders have a 120-second grace period unless you set --catch-up on.

Easier option: ask your agent, “Run hermes cron list, tell me why my morning brief didn’t fire, and fix it.”

My verdict

Scheduled jobs are where an agent starts paying for itself, because the work happens while you’re not watching. Set up one daily brief, pin its model, decide how it should handle missed runs, and keep the gateway running. That’s a Hermes Agent cron job you can rely on.

About Julian Goldie

I’m Julian Goldie — founder of Goldie Agency and the AI Profit Boardroom. I test new AI agents almost every day for 432K+ YouTube subscribers and run Hermes, OpenClaw, OpenCode, Claude and Codex side by side in my own Agent OS. Claim your free strategy session or join the AI Profit Boardroom.

Want another angle? Read the AI Profit Boardroom guide to Hermes Agent Cron Jobs.

FAQ: hermes agent cron job

How do I create a cron job in Hermes Agent?

Ask Hermes in plain English, use /cron add in chat, or run hermes cron create with a schedule such as “every 2h” or a cron expression like “0 7 * * 1-5”, followed by the prompt.

How do I stop a running Hermes cron job?

Run hermes cron cancel with the job ID or name, or click Stop in the job’s header in Hermes Desktop. The schedule stays as it is and the run is recorded as cancelled.

What happens if Hermes was off when a job was due?

A recurring job catches up once when Hermes is back. Set –catch-up off to skip missed runs, or pick Use the default, Run once when back or Skip them under Missed runs in the Desktop editor.

Which model does a Hermes cron job use?

A per-job model pin first, then cron.model in config.yaml, then your main model from hermes model at the moment the job fires.

Why isn’t my Hermes cron job running?

The most common causes are a stopped gateway, a blocked_config status from a missing key, skill or delivery target, or a one-shot reminder that missed its 120-second grace period.

Can a cron job run a script without the AI?

Yes. No-agent mode runs a script on a schedule and delivers its output directly, with no model call and no tokens.

Related reading

• Hermes Agent Automation
• Hermes Agent Slash Commands
• Hermes Agent Usage Limits

Last updated November 2026. This page is a living guide to hermes agent cron job — the facts here move fast and it is updated as they do.