Routines
A routine is a prompt or a command that Atlas runs on a schedule: a summary of your inbox every weekday at 9, a check of a site every hour, a backup every night. Each run of a prompt is a conversation of its own, and you are notified when it ends.
Make one
The simplest way is to ask, in a conversation:
Every weekday at 9am, read my unread emails and give me the five that need an answer.
Atlas makes the routine and tells you its schedule. From a terminal:
atlas routines create inbox --schedule "weekdays at 9am" --prompt "Read my unread emails and list the five that need an answer."atlas routines create backup --schedule "every day at 3am" --command "atlas backup"A prompt routine runs the agent on your words; write the prompt so it stands alone, since the
run starts with no conversation before it. A command routine runs a command in the system’s
shell and delivers its output. --model openai/gpt-6-sol pins a model to a routine; unset, it runs
on the default model. --bot NAME runs it as one of your bots, its result
entering the bot’s conversation.
Schedules
| Written | Runs |
|---|---|
every 30m, every 2h, every 1d |
again and again, that long apart |
in 2h |
once, two hours from now |
every monday 9am, monday, wednesday at 18:30 |
on those days, at that time |
weekdays at 9am, weekends at noon, every day at 3am |
every weekday, weekend day or day |
0 9 * * 1-5 |
a 5-field cron expression |
2026-12-01T14:00 |
once, at that time |
Times are in your system’s time zone, or the one under Settings, then Workspace
(Time zone of routines), an IANA name such as America/Sao_Paulo.
The Routines screen
Routines, in the sidebar, lists each routine with its schedule, its next run and how its last one went. From there you can Run now, Pause, Resume and Remove a routine, and open its Runs: each run of a prompt opens as the conversation it was. Creating and changing a routine stays with the conversation and the terminal.
When it runs
- Atlas’s server fires them, so a routine runs while the app is open, or always when the home runs as a service: Always on, under Settings, then Machines (see Several machines).
- A run missed while the computer was off still runs when it comes back, within half the routine’s period (between 2 minutes and 2 hours). Past that, the missed runs collapse into one, and the list marks it late. A routine still running does not start again.
- You are notified when a run ends. A run with nothing to say is kept and notifies nobody: a
prompt whose answer is
[SILENT], or a command with no output. A failure always notifies.
What a run may do
A run has nobody watching it, so it works with less:
- it cannot ask you a question, and a command that would need your approval is refused;
- it cannot make or change a routine;
- it stops after 10 minutes without activity, with no limit on the whole run;
- it has no background review, and it reads the memory as it was when it started;
- a command routine made by the agent passes the approval gate when it is made and when it is changed, since later it runs with nobody to approve it.
When a run repeats itself (the same failing call, a cycle of the same steps), Atlas stops it, where in a conversation it would only warn the agent.
Command line
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
atlas routines list |
The routines, their schedules and their last run |
atlas routines create NAME --schedule ... --prompt ... |
Make a prompt routine (or --command) |
atlas routines run NAME |
Run it at the server’s next minute |
atlas routines pause NAME |
Stop it firing until resumed |
atlas routines resume NAME |
Fire it again; a run that came due meanwhile runs once |
atlas routines runs NAME |
Its runs, the newest first |
atlas routines remove NAME |
Delete it and its runs |
Every option is in Commands.