Routines & saved prompts
The Desktop offers two ways to avoid repeating work: Routines, which run a task on a schedule, and Saved Prompts, reusable instructions you trigger manually. They look similar but serve different purposes — this page makes the distinction clear.
The difference in a table
| Routines | Saved Prompts | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Global to your user | Per project |
| Trigger | Scheduled (automatic) | Manual only (Run Now) |
| Where it lives | Routines drawer | Workspace → Saved Prompts |
| Notifies on completion | Yes (configurable) | No |
| History + artifacts | Yes | — |
Routines and Saved Prompts are Desktop features. Routines run while the app is open — the scheduler lives in the app, not on a server.
Routines
A routine runs a prompt at a set time or interval — for example, "every Monday at 8 a.m., generate the weekly report." Routines are global to your user: they don't belong to a specific project.
Create a routine
- Open the Routines drawer and click + New routine.
- Fill in the fields:
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Title | Name of the routine |
| Prompt | The instruction the agent will run |
| Schedule kind | once, daily, weekly, monthly, interval, or weekdays |
| At (HH:MM) | Trigger time (for time-based schedules) |
| Weekday / Day | Day of the week (weekly) or of the month (monthly) |
| Interval | ISO-8601 period for interval (e.g., PT2H = every 2 hours) |
| Timezone | Time zone used to compute the times |
| Run mode | local_plain or local_protected (see Execution modes) |
| Enabled | Turns the routine on/off |
| Retries / Max runtime / Artifact retain | Attempts, maximum time, and artifact retention |
| Notify on | complete, failure, ask_user |
- Save. From then on, the routine fires according to the schedule — as long as the Desktop is open.
Manage and follow
- Run now runs the routine immediately, outside the schedule.
- Pause suspends the triggers without deleting the routine; Delete removes it.
- Each routine keeps a history of runs and the artifacts produced, accessible right in the drawer.
Notifications
Set Notify on to be alerted when a routine completes or fails. The alerts arrive through the Desktop notification center (native toast + in-app fallback). See Notifications.
Because the scheduler runs inside the Desktop, a routine does not fire while the app is closed. For tasks that should run without you around, leave the app open during the scheduled window.
Saved Prompts
A saved prompt is a reusable instruction within a project. Unlike routines, it's manual only: there's no scheduling by design — you trigger it with Run Now whenever you want.
Use saved prompts for instructions you repeat often in a project, but at moments only you decide — for example, "review the changelog and propose the release note" before each release.
They live in Workspace → Saved Prompts (shortcut Alt+5 on the Desktop) and belong to the current project, not to your user globally.
Which to use
- Needs to run on its own, at a fixed time → Routine.
- An instruction you repeat, but trigger by hand, tied to a project → Saved Prompt.
For a complete walkthrough of automating a weekly report, see the dedicated recipe.
See also
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