Scheduled automations (background daemon)

[andreahlert]

Description

Run automations continuously in the background on a schedule, instead of manual auto run.

Features

• Cron-like scheduling per automation
• Background daemon mode (postcli-substack auto daemon)
• Systemd/launchd service file generation
• Logging to file with rotation
• Status monitoring via CLI

CLI

postcli-substack auto daemon start
postcli-substack auto daemon stop
postcli-substack auto daemon status
postcli-substack auto daemon install # generate systemd/launchd unit

Notes

Should work as a lightweight Node.js process with minimal memory footprint. Consider using node-cron or native setTimeout loops.

[m13v]

been running a similar scheduled automation setup for months and have some notes that might help.

launchd is way more reliable than cron on macOS. the key things: use StartInterval instead of StartCalendarInterval for anything sub-hourly, set KeepAlive to false (you want it to run and exit, not stay resident), and add StandardOutPath/StandardErrorPath for log files. launchd handles log rotation poorly though so you'll want a find command that cleans up logs older than N days.

for the daemon status command, reading the launchd job state directly with launchctl list is simpler than maintaining a PID file. PID files go stale if the process crashes, but launchctl always knows the real state.

one thing I'd add to the spec - a way to run a job immediately for testing without waiting for the next interval. we use launchctl kickstart for that.

[m13v]

our launchd job setup for scheduled automation: https://github.com/m13v/social-autoposter/tree/main/launchd - six different jobs running at intervals from 1h to 24h, with the patterns I described above

[andreahlert]

Hello @m13v nice! Feel free to create a PR implementing that here.

[m13v]

happy to take a look at putting together a PR. the main design decision for launchd scheduling is whether to use StartInterval (fixed seconds) or StartCalendarInterval (cron-like). for scheduled posting, calendar intervals are usually what people want - "post every weekday at 9am" vs "post every 86400 seconds". will dig into the codebase and see what fits.