Run an agent on a schedule

A Schedule Trigger starts an agent at times you choose, whether or not anything has changed. Use it for regular work: a summary of the day's BigChange jobs for the office at 07:00 each weekday, a chase of overdue invoices every Monday, or a report of completed jobs on the last day of the month. It is the first step on the canvas, and when its time comes it starts a run that works through the steps after it.

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Daily job summary

1,240 / 10,000 creditsValidateResetDraft savedRunsSettings

Save and Publish5

Weekday mornings

Daily at 07:00 · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

2

Fetch today's jobs

List jobs

Write the summary

GPT-5.6 Terra

Email the summary

1 action enabled

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Ready to publish

1. 1Schedule Trigger, at the top of the Trigger group in the Nodes panel.
2. 2The trigger on the canvas. The line under its name says when it runs.
3. 3Schedule mode: Simple, Advanced or Dates. The fields below it change with the mode.
4. 4Schedule summary: the same description in full.
5. 5Save and Publish. A schedule only starts runs once the agent is published.

The trigger costs nothing while it waits. Each run costs 1 automation credit plus whatever its steps use, so how often it runs decides most of the cost. See What a schedule costs.

1. 1Open the agent and find Schedule Trigger at the top of the Trigger group in the Nodes panel.
2. 2Drag it onto the canvas, or click it, and place it to the left of your first step.
3. 3Drag from the dot on its right edge to the dot on the left of the first step.
4. 4With the trigger selected, choose a Schedule mode in the Details panel and fill in the fields below it.
5. 5Click Save draft, try it with Run now in Runs, then click Save and Publish when it is ready.

Schedule Trigger

Daily

Fetch today's jobs

List jobs

1. 1Schedule mode starts on Simple.
2. 2Frequency starts on Daily.
3. 3The Schedule summary reads Daily.

A new Schedule Trigger has no time of day. Simple with Daily means every 24 hours from the moment you publish, so an agent published at 10:40 runs at about 10:45 the next day. For a fixed time, switch to Advanced.

A trigger has one Run at time. To run the same work at two different times of day, such as 07:00 and 13:00, build a second agent with its own trigger.

You can also describe the schedule in words, such as "every weekday at 07:00", and let the AI builder or Chat set the trigger for you. Check the Schedule summary before you publish. See Build your first agent from a message and Build and edit agents from chat and WhatsApp.

Schedule mode decides which fields you see:

• Simple repeats at a fixed interval, from every 5 minutes to monthly, counted from when you publish. There is no time of day and no choice of days.
• Advanced adds a Run at time for daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly runs, the days of the week to run on, a day of the month, and working hours for the shorter intervals.
• Dates runs once at each date and time in a list, then stops.

Switching to Dates adds one empty row set to 09:00 for you to fill in. Switching back to Simple or Advanced sets Frequency to Daily. Settings you filled in for another mode are kept, but only the chosen mode's settings are used.

If you are not sure, use Advanced. It runs at a fixed time, while Simple's timing moves, as the next section explains.

Pick how often from Frequency. Every option except Manual only (no auto-run) starts the agent on its own:

Unassigned jobs check

Every hour

Find unassigned jobs

List jobs

In Simple mode, the clock starts when you publish. The first run comes one interval later: an hour after you click Save and Publish for Every hour, 24 hours later for Daily. After that, each run is due one interval after the last one started.

• The shortest interval is 5 minutes, because Centrus checks schedules every 5 minutes. A run starts at the first check after it falls due.
• Runs drift later. Each interval is counted from the moment a run started, which is just after a check, so the next run often waits for the check after. Every hour can come round every 65 minutes, and Every 5 minutes nearer every 10.
• Weekly is every 7 days, Fortnightly every 14 days and Monthly every 30 days, all counted from when you publish. Simple Monthly is the exception for its first run, which comes an hour after you publish. After that it is every 30 days.
• Publishing again restarts the count. Clicking Update & Publish after a change makes the next run due one interval from then.
• Manual only (no auto-run) never starts on its own. Use it for an agent you only start by hand from Runs, and choose it in Simple mode: in Advanced mode the agent still runs once a day, even though its summary reads Manual only.

For anything people expect at a set time, such as a morning summary, use Advanced instead.

Advanced runs at a time of day you choose, on the days you pick. This is the set-up for Daily job summary, which emails the office a summary of the day's jobs at 07:00 each weekday:

1. 1Set Schedule mode to Advanced.
2. 2Set Frequency to Daily.
3. 3In Run at time, enter 07:00.
4. 4Under Run on these days, click Weekdays, or click each day to turn it on or off. Picked days are dark blue.
5. 5Check that the Schedule summary reads Daily at 07:00 · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, then save and publish.

Weekday mornings

Daily at 07:00 · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

Fetch today's jobs

List jobs

1. 1Frequency. With Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly or Monthly, Run at time appears below it.
2. 2Run at time, in the 24-hour clock.
3. 3Run on these days. Weekdays picks Monday to Friday and Weekends picks Saturday and Sunday. All days picks all seven, or clears them if all seven are already picked.
4. 4Schedule summary. Read it before you publish.

The first run is the next picked day at that time. Publish at 15:00 on a Friday and the first run is 07:00 on Monday. Runs then stay at 07:00, with no drift.

A weekly run works the same way. For a chase of overdue invoices every Monday at 09:00, set Frequency to Weekly, Run at time to 09:00, and pick only Mon:

Monday mornings

Weekly at 09:00 · Mon

Fetch unpaid invoices

List invoices

• In Advanced mode, Daily and Weekly behave the same. Both run on each day you pick, so Weekly with Monday and Thursday picked runs twice a week.
• No days picked means every day. A Daily schedule with no days runs all seven. So does a Weekly one, after the warning No days selected: pick at least one day for this schedule to run.
• Avoid Fortnightly in Advanced mode. It runs on the first picked day and then every 24 hours, not every two weeks. For a run every 14 days, use Simple with Fortnightly.

In Advanced mode, the intervals from Every 5 minutes to Every 8 hours have no Run at time. Instead, tick Limit to hours to keep them inside working hours on the days you pick. For a check for unassigned jobs every hour from 07:00 to 18:00 on weekdays:

1. 1Set Schedule mode to Advanced and Frequency to Every hour.
2. 2Under Run on these days, click Weekdays.
3. 3Tick Limit to hours and leave Same window every day selected.
4. 4Enter 07:00 and 18:00 in the two time boxes.

Inside the window, runs come round at the interval. The first run each day is at the start of the window, and the last can be at the end time itself.

• The days only count with Limit to hours ticked. Without it, an Advanced interval runs round the clock, every day, after its first run, whatever days are picked. The summary still lists the days.
• The first run after you publish waits until 09:00 on the next picked day. That is the hidden Run at time, which stays at 09:00 unless you set another time before you changed Frequency. From then on, the window applies.
• With custom windows, a day with no window does not run.
• Untick with care. If you chose Custom window per day and then untick Limit to hours, the custom windows still apply. Choose Same window every day first.

For a report of the month's completed jobs at 17:00 on the last day of each month:

1. 1Set Schedule mode to Advanced and Frequency to Monthly.
2. 2Enter 17:00 in Run at time.
3. 3Enter 31 in Day of the month. In a shorter month, day 31 means the last day, such as 30/11/2026 or 28/02/2027.
4. 4Leave Run on these days as it is. With a day of the month set, a monthly run ignores it.

Last day of the month

Monthly at 17:00

Fetch completed jobs

List jobs

1. 1Run at time: 17:00.
2. 2Day of the month, from 1 to 31. A London day is the date in the UK.
3. 3Run on these days stays on screen but does not choose the date.
4. 4The summary reads Monthly at 17:00. It leaves out the day, so name the trigger after it, as here.

Publish on 09/10/2026 and the first run is 17:00 on 31/10/2026, then 17:00 on 30/11/2026. Days 29 and 30 also move to the last day of February.

Leave Day of the month empty and there is no fixed date. The first run is the next Run at time on one of the picked days, usually today or tomorrow, and each run after that comes about a month after the one before. For a monthly report, always fill in the day.

Dates runs the agent once at each date and time you list. Use it for one-off or irregular work, such as gas safety reminders at the start of each quarter.

1. 1Set Schedule mode to Dates. One empty row appears, set to 09:00.
2. 2Click the date box and pick a date, then set the time.
3. 3Click Add date for each extra run. Click the bin at the end of a row to remove it.

Start of each quarter

3 specific dates

Find gas safety checks due

List jobs

1. 1Add date adds a row set to 09:00.
2. 2One run: a date, a time, and a bin to remove it.
3. 3The summary counts the rows that have both a date and a time.

• Runs happen in date order, whatever order the rows are in.
• Dates already past are skipped. After the last date, the agent stays published but does not run again. To carry on, add dates and publish again.
• With every row removed, the list reads Add at least one date and time. in amber. A Dates schedule with no complete row cannot be published: validation shows Add at least one valid date and time for the specific-dates schedule.
• There is no warning when every date is in the past, so check the dates before you publish.

The trigger's card on the canvas shows its schedule in one line, and the Schedule summary box at the foot of its settings shows the same text in full. Long summaries are cut off on the card, so click the trigger to read the rest.

The summary leaves some settings out:

• Simple mode shows only the interval, such as Every hour, with no start time.
• A monthly run does not show its day of the month.
• Working hours only show when all seven days are picked.

So give the trigger a name that says when it runs, such as Weekday mornings or Last day of the month. The name shows on the card and as the first step of each run.

Every time in a schedule is UK time. Run at time, working hours and the times in a date list all follow London time, including British Summer Time, so a 07:00 run starts at 07:00 all year. There is no setting for another time zone.

Type times in the 24-hour clock, such as 17:30. The time boxes are your browser's own, so a browser set to another region may show am and pm. The time saved is the same either way.

Simple mode counts hours, not clock times. When the clocks change, a Simple Daily run moves an hour earlier or later on the clock, which is one more reason to use Advanced for anything at a set time. To stay clear of the clock changes altogether, avoid run times from 01:00 to 01:59.

Centrus checks schedules every 5 minutes: on the hour, at 5 past, 10 past and so on. A run starts at the first check at or after its time:

• A time on a 5-minute mark starts on time. 07:00, 07:15 and 17:30 start within seconds. 07:02 starts at 07:05.
• The first run after publishing depends on the mode: one interval later in Simple (an hour for Monthly), the next picked day at the Run at time in Advanced, and the next date in Dates.
• Publishing again works out the next run from that moment. On an Advanced or Dates schedule the times stay the same. On a Simple schedule, the interval starts again.
• Nothing is caught up. Runs that fall due while the agent is a draft are skipped, and so is anything before you first publish.
• Runs can overlap. If a run is still going when the next one falls due, the next one starts anyway. Choose an interval longer than a run takes, or two runs may work on the same jobs at once.

Your organisation can have 10 runs going at once, across all its agents. A scheduled run that would be the eleventh fails straight away with This organisation has reached its limit of 10 concurrent workflow run(s). It is not tried again, and the schedule carries on with the next run.

Each run is listed in Runs with Schedule as its trigger and the time it started, in UK time. See Read the Runs panel.

A Schedule Trigger passes on one useful value: triggeredAt, the moment the run started. Later steps use it to put the date in an email subject, name a file after the day, or work out which week to report on.

To use it, open Step data references on a later step and click triggeredAt under Run trigger. That copies {{ trigger.json.triggeredAt }} for you to paste where you need it. Add a date format to make it readable:

Weekday mornings

Daily at 07:00 · Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

Fetch today's jobs

List jobs

Write the summary

GPT-5.6 Terra

Email the summary

1 action enabled

1. 1Step data references, opened. triggeredAt is under Run trigger, and on the trigger's own card above.
2. 2The reference in use, with a UK date format.

What each format gives for a run that started at 07:00 on Wednesday 14/10/2026:

• On its own, triggeredAt is in UTC, so in summer it reads an hour behind the UK clock, as above. The date formats always give the UK date and time, and weekStart moves it back to the Monday of that week.
• It is when the run started, not when it was due. A run due at 07:02 shows 07:05, and a test from Run now shows the time you clicked.
• Do not type a fixed date such as 2026-10-01 into a date window or file name on a scheduled agent, unless you mean that one date. Validation warns This scheduled workflow pins a YYYY-MM-DD date window. and suggests the date format instead.

A scheduled run has no person behind it, so Per-user integration mode is not available. In Settings, Integration mode is greyed out with the note Only available for workflows triggered from chat or manually: a scheduled run has no triggering user.

Daily job summary uses about 6.4 credits a run: 1 for the run, 1 for the BigChange call, about 3.4 for writing the summary and 1 for sending the email. How often it runs multiplies that. Against the standard allowance of 10,000 credits a month, shared by your whole organisation:

A run that finds nothing to do still costs the run and the steps it reached. At 2 credits a run, every 5 minutes still uses 17,280 credits a month.

When the allowance is used up, new runs do not start until it resets. Each scheduled run that falls due is listed as failed in Runs, with a message such as This organisation has used its 10000-credit monthly Agent Builder allowance. The allowance resets on 26/10/2026. It is not charged and is not run later.

To keep costs down, pick the slowest schedule that does the job and keep short intervals to working hours. Where the work starts with something arriving, use a system alert or an email trigger instead of checking every few minutes. All the charges and limits: Automation credits and usage limits.

You do not have to wait for the next run time. Run now starts the agent straight away, as if its time had come. It runs the canvas as last saved, so it works on a draft, and it leaves the schedule alone: the next scheduled run is still due at its usual time.

1. 1Click Save draft or Save changes. Until the agent has been saved once, Run now shows Save your workflow as a draft first. That lets you connect integrations and test run it.
2. 2Click Runs in the toolbar, then Run now, and choose a full run or a dry run.
3. 3Follow the steps of the run on the right of the Runs window.

A test run is a real run. It is charged like any other, and a full run sends real emails and changes real records. Test an agent before it goes live covers dry runs and what they skip.

Click Validate, or publish, to check the agent. Two messages are about the schedule itself:

• Add at least one valid date and time for the specific-dates schedule. is an error. A Dates schedule needs at least one row with both a date and a time, and cannot be published until it has one.
• No days selected: pick at least one day for this schedule to run. is a warning, for an Advanced Weekly or Fortnightly schedule with no days picked. You can still publish, and the agent then runs every day.

To change when a published agent runs, select the trigger, change its settings and click Update & Publish. The new schedule applies from that moment. Until you publish, the old schedule keeps running.

To stop the schedule for a while, open Settings in the toolbar, change Status from Published to Draft, and confirm with Revert to draft:

While the agent is a draft, the schedule does not run, and the runs it misses are not saved up. When you publish again, it starts from that moment: an Advanced schedule waits for its next time, and a Simple one counts a full interval from then. Archiving an agent stops its schedule in the same way. More in Publish, pause and restore versions.

Set up and change schedules on a computer. In a narrow window or on a phone, the builder hides the Details panel, so the trigger's settings are out of reach.