Schedule AI tasks to run on their own

What can a routine do?

• Morning briefing. Weekdays at 8:30, summarise new email and today's calendar (chief of staff bot).
• Inbox sweep. Every hour, label and archive newsletters and flag anything from clients (inbox manager).
• Month end. On the 1st, export last month's invoices to a PDF and file it (accounting bot).
• Watch something. Every evening, check a few pages for price or news changes and report only what changed (research bot).
• Expenses. Fridays at 5, collect receipts from email into your expenses sheet (expense manager).

How do I make a routine?

1. Open the bot and add a routine, or just tell it: "every weekday at 9, send me a summary of my inbox".
2. Write what it should do, the way you would ask it in chat.
3. Pick how often: every hour at a set minute, every day, weekdays, certain days of the week, monthly, or a custom schedule.
4. Choose whether it notifies you or runs quietly. Quiet routines still tell you if something fails.
5. Turn it on. A bot that suggests a routine waits for your "Allow" before it starts.

Where do the results go?

To the bot's current chat, in the app, where you can read what it did and reply to it. If it made a file, the file is there too. A routine with notifications pings you on your computer when it's done; check from Telegram with /routines to see what's scheduled.

Routines work best combined with the rest of AppuBot: a skill you taught it for the steps, connected apps for email and calendars, computer use for apps that have no other way in.

What do I need to keep running?

Routines run on your computer in its local time, so it needs to be on with AppuBot open (it can sit in the menu bar). On a Mac, AppuBot can keep the computer awake, even with the lid closed, so night-time routines still run.

Writing a routine that works well

Write the prompt for the day it runs, not the day you make it. "Summarise the email that came in since yesterday's summary" works every morning; "summarise my email" may repeat itself. Say what to do when there's nothing to report ("if nothing is new, just say so") and what the output should be: a short message, a file, a row in a sheet.

Start with notifications on, so you see the first few runs, then switch it to quiet once you trust it. A quiet routine still alerts you when it fails, and you can always read what it did in the chat. If a routine needs to act in your accounts, keep the bot on Approve for me at first: the run waits for your OK on those steps.