task

Task Management

Create, edit, and manage scheduled tasks. Tasks live at ~/.abtars/tasks/ — each task is a directory.

Structure

~/.abtars/tasks/
├── tasks.json              # Registry: schedule, kind, taskFile path (definitions only)
├── task-state.json          # Runtime state (auto-managed, do not edit)
├── task-history.jsonl       # Append-only run log (auto-managed)
├── my-task/
│   ├── TASK.md              # Main prompt (what the agent does)
│   ├── feeds.json           # Associated data (auto-injected)
│   └── report-template.md   # Any supporting files

All files in a task directory (except TASK.md) are automatically injected as context when the task runs.

Creating a task

1. Create the directory and TASK.md:

mkdir -p ~/.abtars/tasks/my-task
cat > ~/.abtars/tasks/my-task/TASK.md << 'EOF'
# My Task

Instructions for what the agent should do when this task fires.
Use {today} for today's date (auto-substituted).
EOF

1. Register in tasks.json via CLI:

abtars-task add \
  --id my-task \
  --schedule "0 9 * * *" \
  --message "Run my-task" \
  --kind agent \
  --agent task \
  --task-file "~/.abtars/tasks/my-task/TASK.md" \
  --chat-id <CHAT_ID>

Schedule format

Standard cron: minute hour day month weekday

Example	Meaning
0 9 * * *	Daily at 9am
30 8 * * 1-5	Weekdays at 8:30am
0 0 * * *	Midnight daily
0 */6 * * *	Every 6 hours

For one-shot tasks, use --at "2026-12-25T08:00" instead of --schedule.

Task kinds

Kind	Behavior
agent	Agent session runs the prompt or TASK.md
script	Shell command runs directly
reminder	Simple text reminder at scheduled time
orc	Orc project dispatch
system	Internal bridge action (sleep-cycle, hardware-sleep)

Delivery modes

Set delivery in tasks.json. Each kind has a required delivery mode.

Mode	Behavior	Use for
report	Drop the result file to chat (no model call)	Reports, generated documents
announce	Send the agent's response text directly	Greetings, conversational tasks
silent	No output to user	Internal housekeeping, scripts