How to schedule Claude Code on your Mac (cron jobs, workflows and skills)

Published November 9, 2026 · ShellPro Team

Short answer: to run Claude Code on a schedule on your own Mac, with your repos, your tools and your secrets, open Automations in ShellX, describe the job in one sentence, and save the draft Claude Code writes for you. ShellX installs it as a launchd job, so it runs at the set time even when the ShellX app is closed, and tells you on your Mac when it is done, fails or needs you. If the job should run while your computer is off, use Anthropic’s cloud scheduled tasks instead; there is a comparison of all four options below.

What you need

• A Mac with macOS 14 or later and ShellX 1.7.0 or later — download. Automations is in the macOS app only.
• Claude Code installed and signed in on that Mac. Automations runs your own Claude Code, with your account; if ShellX can’t find it, it says “Claude Code was not found on this Mac. Install it, then try again.”

Step by step: a weekday pull-request summary

1. Open Automations in the ShellX sidebar. Each card shows a job’s schedule, its next run and how the last run went.
2. Press New and describe the job, for example: “Every weekday at 9am, summarize the pull requests in ~/code/web.”
3. Answer Claude Code’s questions. It asks one thing at a time: the schedule, the folder the job runs in, and the commands it may use while you’re away. It grants the least that works, for example Bash(gh pr list:*) and Bash(gh pr view:*) rather than all of Bash, and asks how you want to hear back: When done, When failed, When it needs you.
4. Check the draft. The Flowchart tab draws the job’s logic as steps, decisions and the points where it stops to ask you. The Text tab shows the SKILL.md file Claude Code will follow. While drafting, Claude Code can only read files; ShellX writes the files when you save.
5. Press Save. ShellX schedules the job on this Mac, and the new card shows its next run.
6. Press Run now to try it right away. The card shows the run in progress, then the result. Open log shows what Claude did, and Continue in terminal reopens that Claude Code session (claude --resume) in a ShellX tab.

Skills, workflows and cron jobs

ShellX Automations keeps three kinds of Claude Code automation in one place:

• Cron job: one prompt that runs on a schedule, unattended. This is the usual choice for reports, triage, audits and clean-ups.
• Workflow: an ordered list of steps, each with its own prompt, run one after another in the same Claude Code session, on demand or on a schedule. If a step fails, the run stops there.
• Skill: a SKILL.md in ~/.claude/skills/ that Claude Code loads when it’s relevant in your normal chats. ShellX doesn’t schedule skills; Claude Code runs them.

Skills you already have show up too. Every personal skill in ~/.claude/skills/ appears in Automations, including the ones ShellX didn’t create. Open one and press Draw flowchart: Claude Code reads its SKILL.md, with no tools, and draws it, including the steps where it stops to ask you. That’s a quick way to check what a skill you installed actually does.

How a scheduled run works

Under the hood, nothing is hidden:

• Each scheduled job is a launchd agent of your user, at ~/Library/LaunchAgents/pro.shellx.automation.<id>.plist. launchd starts it; the ShellX app doesn’t have to be open.
• The job runs claude -p in the folder you chose, with --permission-mode default and --allowedTools set to the commands you approved. The rules you already allow in your Claude Code settings still apply.
• Claude is told it is running unattended: when it needs a decision or a permission it doesn’t have, it stops and the run ends as Needs you, with the reason (for example “Needs permission for: …”) instead of guessing.
• Each Claude Code call is stopped after 2 hours (a workflow makes one call per step). If the previous run is still going, the next one is skipped rather than run twice.
• Files live in ~/.shellx/automations/<id>/: the job, its SKILL.md, and the last 30 runs with their output. Deleting a job moves its folder to the Trash.
• If your Mac is asleep at the scheduled time, launchd starts the job once when the Mac wakes, not once per missed run. The Mac has to be on, with you logged in.

ShellX Automations vs Claude Desktop, cloud tasks and cron

Anthropic’s own options are documented in Compare scheduling options (checked November 2026; cloud tasks are a research preview and change often).

Which one to pick:

• Choose ShellX Automations if the job needs your Mac’s files and tools, should run without any app open, and you want to see its logic as a flowchart, chain several steps, or reuse the skills you already have.
• Choose Claude Desktop local tasks if you already live in Claude Desktop, keep it open all day, and want each run as a session there (it can also give each run its own Git worktree).
• Choose cloud tasks if the job must run while your computer is off, or should start on a GitHub event or an API call.
• Choose plain cron or launchd if you want no app at all and are happy to write and maintain the schedule yourself.

Doing it by hand with cron

If you’d rather not use an app, a crontab entry works too. Set PATH and use full paths, because cron starts with an almost empty environment and won’t find Homebrew tools such as gh:

# crontab -e — weekdays at 9:00
PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
0 9 * * 1-5 cd "$HOME/code/web" && "$HOME/.local/bin/claude" -p "Summarize the open pull requests" --allowedTools "Bash(gh pr list:*)" >> "$HOME/pr-summary.log" 2>&1

Cron skips runs while the Mac sleeps; a launchd agent with StartCalendarInterval runs once on wake instead, which is what ShellX sets up for you, along with the log, the run history and the notification.

FAQ

Does ShellX have to be open for a job to run? No. Each job is a launchd agent that starts the ShellX command-line tool directly. The app only needs to be open to create or edit jobs.

What happens if my Mac is asleep at 9am? launchd starts the job once when the Mac wakes. If your prompt depends on the time of day, say so in it, for example “only summarize pull requests opened since yesterday”.

What can a job do while I’m away? Only the commands you approved for it, plus what your Claude Code settings already allow. If it needs anything else, it stops and the run shows Needs you with the reason; you can pick the session up with Continue in terminal.

Does it work with Codex or Gemini CLI? No, Automations uses Claude Code only. You can still run Codex, Gemini CLI or any other agent in a ShellX pane and follow it from your phone: Run Codex CLI, Gemini CLI or Aider from your phone.

Is Automations on Windows? No. It is in the macOS app only.

Where do I see the jobs’ results? On each card in Automations: the last run’s status, Open log, and the history of the last 30 runs. Mac notifications tell you when a run is done, fails or needs you, depending on what you chose.