> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cortex.foundation/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Routines
> Recurring work on one bot: create a routine, the local weekday schedule, pause and resume, the run record, and sharing a schedule
A routine is work a bot repeats on a schedule: every weekday morning, pull the report; during business hours, watch the queue; on Friday, check the release page. Routines belong to a bot you own, and the panel describes them as `Recurring tasks this bot runs in your local weekday hours.`
The important thing about a routine is that it is not a canned action. Each run is a complete bot turn, with the bot's full set of tools, its memory, its skills and its computer. This page covers creating one, how the schedule is interpreted, what a run actually does, pausing and deleting, seeing every bot's routines together, and sharing a schedule with someone else.
## Create a routine
Open the bot and go to its **Routines** panel. An empty panel reads `No routines yet.`
The form is short on purpose. While the list loads you see `Loading routines…`.
This is the label you will recognise in the list and on the week grid.
Write plain intent, the way you would write a message to the bot. This text becomes the instruction the run starts from, so it should stand on its own without the context of a conversation you had last week.
Whole hours from 0 to 23. Anything else is refused with `Weekday hours must be whole hours from 0 to 23.`
**Cancel** backs out. If the routine cannot be created you get `The routine could not be created.` and nothing is scheduled.
The bot can also create a routine for itself. Asking it in the conversation to do something every weekday morning is enough: scheduling is one of its own tools, and it passes your intent rather than a schedule written in code. It is one of the tools that never stops to ask for approval, so it can set one up mid-turn.
## When a routine runs
| Rule | Detail |
| ------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Clock | Your local time, not a shared server clock. Your time zone is sent with the schedule. |
| Days | Weekdays, by default |
| Default | `Runs on weekdays at 9:00 in your local time, unless the prompt says otherwise.` |
| Hours | The **From (hour)** and **Until (hour)** window, whole hours 0 to 23 |
| Checked | Cortex sweeps for due routines about once a minute |
A routine that runs on a **set date** rather than on weekdays is handled separately: it is listed under **Scheduled by date** rather than drawn on the weekday grid, because `These run on a set date, not a weekday, so they are not on the grid above.`
A routine can also be triggered by an event instead of by the clock. Cortex supports event routines driven by Slack and GitHub activity, so a run can start when something happens rather than at a fixed hour.
## What a run actually does
A run is a full turn, started by the schedule rather than by you, and Cortex marks it as such so you can tell a scheduled run from something you asked for. Four things follow from that.
* **The bot has everything.** Its memory, its enabled skills, its connected apps and its computer. If the computer is asleep, the run brings it back before the work starts. See [Computer](/bot/computer).
* **Approvals still apply.** A consequential step inside a run parks behind **Allow**, **Deny** or **Always**, exactly as it would in a conversation. A routine does not quietly gain permission because you were not watching. If a run parks while you are away it waits for you, and the bot's row in the sidebar shows the pending marker. See [Approvals and tool policy](/bot/approvals).
* **The turn rules are the same.** There is no round limit, but the fifteen-minute turn deadline holds. A run that hits the deadline ends there and the work it already did stays. Long jobs belong in a background task inside the run: see [Tasks and subagents](/bot/tasks).
* **You hear about it if you asked to.** Cortex tells you when a run finishes, when it needs a decision, and when an automation ran, and a bot's **Notify me** setting decides whether that reaches you. See [Notifications](/getting-started/notifications).
Each routine keeps a record of its runs, so you can check whether a schedule has actually been firing rather than guessing from the conversation.
## Pause, resume and delete
| Action | What it does |
| ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Pause** | Stops the schedule firing. The routine stays in the list, marked `paused`. |
| **Resume** | Puts it back on the schedule, unchanged. |
| **Delete** | Removes the routine. |
| **Share** | Offers the schedule to someone else, covered below. |
If a change does not stick you get `That change could not be saved.`, and a failed removal reads `The routine could not be deleted.` In both cases the routine is left as it was.
Your routines follow the account rather than the device, so the web app and the [Bot desktop app](/bot/desktop) show the same list.
## See every routine at once
The **Routines** action at the top of the Bot sidebar opens an account-wide week grid: `This week's routines in your local timezone. Pause, resume, or add one. The Computer rail still lists the open bot's routines.`
* **Previous week**, **This week** and **Next week** move the grid.
* **New** creates a routine from here. The form asks for the **Bot**, a **Name** and an **Instruction**, then **Create**.
* **Pause** and **Resume** work on the grid as they do in the panel. A failure reads `The routine could not be updated.`
* Date-bound routines are listed below the grid under **Scheduled by date**.
* With nothing scheduled you get `No routines this week` and `Create a routine for a bot you own. Sharing a schedule is a different surface.`
## Share a schedule
A routine can be handed to someone else with **Share**, which is offered as **Share this schedule**. The recipient sees **Shared schedule** and chooses **Add to my bot**, which puts a copy of the schedule on a bot of theirs.
`Copied schedules start paused.` A copy never begins running on its own, so the recipient chooses **Resume** when they are ready. Sharing a schedule is a separate surface from sharing a bot: see [Share a bot](/bot/sharing).
## Routines, tasks and scheduled prompts
Three different things, easily confused, each on its own surface.
| | Routine | Task | Chat scheduled task |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| What it is | Recurring work on one bot | A nested subagent inside one turn | A prompt re-run in a chat you already have |
| Lives on | The bot's **Routines** panel, and the account week grid | Inside a turn, with no page of its own | The Cortex Chat scheduled tasks page |
| Each run is | A full bot turn | A child loop inside the parent's turn | A Chat turn |
| Created by | You, or the bot | Only the bot | You |
| Schedule | A local weekday window, a set date, or an event | None, it is immediate | A cadence you pick |
| Can be paused | Yes | No, only cancelled | Yes |
| Can be shared | Yes | No | Not from Chat, `Sharing a schedule is a different surface.` |
## Related
* [Tasks and subagents](/bot/tasks) - the delegation that happens inside a single run.
* [Bot skills](/bot/skills) - the recipe a scheduled run can follow.
* [Approvals and tool policy](/bot/approvals) - why an unattended run can still stop and wait for you.
* [Computer](/bot/computer) - the desktop a run wakes and works on.
* [How Bot works](/bot/how-it-works) - the turn, the deadline and the cue that marks a scheduled run.
* [Chat scheduled tasks](/chat/scheduled-tasks) - the Chat equivalent, and why it is not the same thing.