---
title: "Scheduled Deliveries (Cron)"
description: "Cron-driven recurring reports to Telegram, Slack, and Discord"
---

# Scheduled Deliveries

OpenSRE can deliver recurring reports to messaging providers on a cron schedule. This enables daily reliability digests, weekly alert audits, synthetic test summaries, and custom investigations — all delivered automatically without manual CLI invocations.

## Quick Start

```bash
# Add a daily summary to Telegram at 09:00 IST on weekdays
opensre cron add --kind daily_summary --cron "0 9 * * 1-5" \
  --tz Asia/Kolkata --provider telegram --chat-id <chat_id>

# List configured tasks
opensre cron list

# Run a task immediately (for debugging)
opensre cron run <task_id>

# Start the scheduler daemon
opensre cron start
```

## CLI Commands

### `opensre cron add`

Create a new scheduled delivery task.

| Option | Required | Description |
|--------|----------|-------------|
| `--kind` | Yes | Task kind: `daily_summary`, `weekly_audit`, `incident_window_replay`, `synthetic_run`, `custom_investigation` |
| `--cron` | Yes | Cron expression (5 fields: minute hour day month day_of_week) |
| `--tz` | No | IANA timezone (default: `UTC`). Examples: `Europe/London`, `US/Eastern`, `Asia/Kolkata` |
| `--provider` | Yes | Messaging provider: `telegram`, `slack`, `discord` |
| `--chat-id` | Yes | Target chat/channel ID for the provider |
| `--window` | No | Lookback window in hours (default: `24`) |

### `opensre cron list`

Display all configured scheduled tasks in a table.

### `opensre cron remove <task_id>`

Delete a scheduled task by its ID.

### `opensre cron run <task_id>`

Execute a task immediately (ad-hoc one-shot). Useful for debugging delivery without waiting for the next cron tick.

### `opensre cron logs <task_id>`

Show execution history for a task (newest first). Displays start time, status, message ID, and any errors.

### `opensre cron start`

Start the blocking scheduler daemon. Loads all enabled tasks and fires them according to their cron schedules. Blocks until `SIGINT` or `SIGTERM`.

## Cron Syntax

Standard 5-field cron expressions:

```
┌───────────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌───────────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0-6, Mon-Sun)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *
```

Examples:
- `0 9 * * 1-5` — weekdays at 09:00
- `0 8 * * 1` — Mondays at 08:00
- `*/30 * * * *` — every 30 minutes
- `0 0 1 * *` — first day of each month at midnight

Cron expressions are validated at `cron add` time using APScheduler's `CronTrigger`. Invalid expressions are rejected immediately.

## Timezone Behavior

- All fire times are internally converted to UTC for dedup consistency
- The `--tz` option accepts any IANA timezone (e.g., `Europe/London`, `US/Eastern`)
- DST transitions are handled correctly — the UTC-normalized dedup key ensures no duplicate or missed deliveries across clock changes

## Dedup Semantics

The scheduler uses a SQLite-backed claim store with a `UNIQUE(task_id, fire_time)` constraint:

1. When a cron tick fires, `EVENT_JOB_SUBMITTED` captures `scheduled_run_times[0]` and the job uses that UTC-normalized `fire_time` for the claim key
2. The executor attempts an `INSERT OR IGNORE` into the claim table
3. If the insert succeeds (rowcount = 1), this instance won the claim and delivers
4. If the insert is ignored (rowcount = 0), another instance already claimed it — skip

This ensures exactly-once delivery even when multiple scheduler instances run concurrently (e.g., on a laptop and a hosted process).

## Credential Resolution

Credentials are resolved lazily at delivery time in this priority order:

1. **Integration store** — `~/.opensre/integrations.json` (configured via `opensre integrations`)
2. **Environment variables** — `TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN`, `SLACK_BOT_TOKEN`, `DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN`
3. **Task params** — credentials stored in the task definition (not recommended)

This means you don't need to pass credentials at `cron add` time — they're picked up from your existing integration configuration.

## Task Kinds

| Kind | Behavior |
|------|----------|
| `daily_summary` | Runs the investigation pipeline with a daily summary source. Falls back to "no incidents" on empty result, or "pipeline unavailable" on failure. |
| `weekly_audit` | Runs the pipeline with a weekly audit source. Same fallback behavior. |
| `incident_window_replay` | Replays the investigation pipeline over the configured window. Raises on failure (operator should know). |
| `synthetic_run` | Runs the pipeline with a synthetic source. Raises on failure. |
| `custom_investigation` | Runs a custom investigation with user-provided params. Credential keys are stripped before forwarding to the pipeline. |

## Persistence

- **Task definitions** are stored in `~/.opensre/scheduler_tasks.json` (JSON + filelock)
- **Execution history** is stored in `~/.opensre/scheduler.db` (SQLite with WAL mode)
- Both survive process restarts — `opensre cron list` and `opensre cron logs` read from disk

## REPL

The `/cron` slash command in the interactive shell forwards to the CLI:

```
/cron list
/cron add --kind daily_summary --cron "0 9 * * *" --provider telegram --chat-id <id>
/cron run <task_id>
```