Automation Quickstart

Use recurring-tasks for assistant work that should run repeatedly without an interactive request each time. Invoke the underlying skill directly for a one-off run, and use llm-wakeup rather than recurring automation for resuming one session after a usage reset or timeout.

Before enabling a job

  1. Configure the assistant launchers with install-launchers if the job needs unattended agent execution.
  2. Configure and test the skill the job will invoke. For personal planning and inbox automation, complete the Personal Assistance Quickstart first.
  3. Review the unattended execution boundary. A scheduled job cannot stop for questions or approvals.

Recurring jobs are experimental in the first public release and are never enabled merely because their underlying skill is installed.

Platform support and help

Recurring scheduling is implemented for Linux, macOS, and Windows, but it has been thoroughly tested only on Linux. Scheduler setup, triggering, status, or health checks may therefore fail in platform-specific ways on macOS or Windows.

If automation produces an error, show the exact error to the assistant and ask it to diagnose and help resolve the problem. If the issue remains unresolved or would be useful to the Famulus maintainer, invoke send-feedback in that same session. It will prepare a redacted report from the established evidence and send it only after you review and approve the complete message.

What to use when

Need Skill
Configure assistant commands and background execution support install-launchers
Connect Google services needed by a job connect-google
Enable, disable, test, inspect, or repair a recurring assistant job recurring-tasks
Run the work once right now Invoke the underlying skill directly
Resume one assistant session after a reset or timeout llm-wakeup
Follow what an unattended run actually did, during or after it milestone-logging

Enable and verify

Ask recurring-tasks to enable the named job and schedule. After setup, test the job once and confirm that it produced the expected result. If it fails or stops running, use recurring-tasks to inspect the failure and help repair it.

Common recurring workflows include inbox triage and daily planning: email-triage can add obligations to todo and opportunities to triage, while daily-plan prepares the day's plan from the current lists and calendar. These jobs operate on the same persistent personal-assistance state as their interactive versions; scheduling changes when they run, not what data they use.

Operate and troubleshoot

Use recurring-tasks to inspect a failed job, change its schedule, or disable it when you no longer want it to run.

A failed job leaves a transcript of tool calls but no account of what the assistant was trying to do, which is rarely enough to tell a broken job from a job that ran and found nothing. milestone-logging is the other half: a job that records its milestones under a run id can be read back through its generated timeline interface via the shared famulus_dispatcher MCP server, even after the session that started it has ended. The milestone-logging skill owns the recording and timeline protocol.