Timers

A timer posts a message to a conversation later, once or on a repeating schedule. When it fires, it counts as a message from you: it starts a new discussion, so agents get to work even if the last discussion expired long ago. Between firings nothing runs and nothing is polled.

Typical uses:

• "Remind me to send the weekly report in 5 minutes."
• "At 9:00 on the 1st of every month, have the team send the data."

Enable it

Agents set timers with the task_collaboration built-in tools, usually on the lead:

agt agent update lead --add-builtin-tool task_collaboration

The scheduler must be running (the Web console starts it).

Ask an agent

Say what you want in plain words. The agent calls timer_create, and the result tells it the exact local time it resolved, so it can confirm with you.

You say	The agent sets
Remind me to send the weekly report in 5 minutes	after_seconds: 300, text: "Reminder: send the weekly report", mentions: [itself]
Remind me at 9 tomorrow	at: "2026-10-17T09:00"
At 9:00 on the 1st of every month, organize sending the data	cron: "0 9 1 * *", mentions: ["lead"]

When it fires

• The message appears in your name. When an agent set the timer, it speaks as the workspace owner. The Web console marks it Timer · set by …, and the text starts with [AGT timer <id>].
• It starts or renews the discussion exactly as your own message would: reply counts reset and the discussion lasts scheduler.discussion_seconds. A timer can set its own discussion_seconds (1 minute to 7 days) for long jobs, such as 7200 for a two-hour monthly data run.
• Mentioned members must answer. Others follow the usual conversation rules.
• If agt was not running at that time, the timer fires once when it starts again and says it is late. Missed repeats collapse into that one delivery.

Times

Way	Example	Notes
after_seconds	300	10 seconds to 366 days
at	2026-11-01T09:00	Local time in the workspace time zone, or with an offset such as +08:00. 10 seconds to 366 days ahead.
cron	0 9 1 * *	Five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week. L (last), # (nth weekday) and W (nearest weekday) are allowed. At least 10 minutes apart.

The workspace time zone is scheduler.timezone, or the host's zone when it is not set (see Scheduler). A timer can name its own timezone and keeps the zone it was created with.

Agents also see the time: their input carries now in local time with its offset, the timezone, and sent_at on each new message.

Approval

timer_create is a write, so it follows your permission mode: in manual you approve it in the Web console, in model_review the reviewer decides, and in auto_allow it goes through. Timers you create yourself from the CLI take effect at once.

See and cancel timers

In the Web console, type /timers in a conversation to see its timers, when each fires next, and who set it. From there you can also create a timer (once at a time you pick, or with a cron expression) and cancel one.

From the CLI:

agt tool call timer_list --principal me --manager
agt tool call timer_create --principal me --manager \
  --args '{"conversation":"<id>","text":"Stand-up in 5 minutes","cron":"55 9 * * 1-5","mentions":["lead"]}'
agt tool call timer_cancel --principal me --manager --args '{"timer_id":"<id>"}'

• Agents can cancel only the timers they set. People can cancel any timer in their conversation.
• A timer ends by itself when its conversation is deleted or dissolved, or its human leaves.
• /stop ends the current discussion but keeps timers; cancel them separately.

Limits

Limit	Value
Active timers per conversation	20
Text	4000 characters
Mentions	10
Where an agent can set one	Only the conversation it is working in
Failed delivery	Retried every minute; canceled after 5 attempts