Features Cron

Cron

Deskbrid uses rules.create with cron-style triggers and schedule.* actions for periodic task scheduling.

Note: The canonical documentation for scheduling is in schedule.md. The rules.* system is documented in rules.md. This page is a convenience reference for cron-style scheduling.

Schedule events with cron

Use cron expressions as the rule trigger:

deskbrid rules.create {
  name: "periodic-system-info",
  trigger: "0 * * * *",
  action_type: "system.info",
  action_params: {},
  enabled: true
}

You can also define schedules via schedule.json when running the daemon with the cron scheduler enabled.

List schedules (runtime queue)

deskbrid schedule.list

Response:

{
  "type": "response",
  "status": "ok",
  "data": {
    "schedules": [
      {
        "name": "hourly-screenshot",
        "interval_secs": 3600,
        "action_type": "screenshot",
        "action_params": { "output_path": "/tmp/screen.png" },
        "enabled": true,
        "last_run": "2026-05-30T10:00:00Z",
        "next_run": "2026-05-30T11:00:00Z"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Add a scheduled job

deskbrid schedule.add {
  name: "daily-backup",
  interval_secs: 86400,
  action_type: "windows.list",
  action_params: {},
  enabled: true
}

Remove a scheduled job

deskbrid schedule.remove { name: "daily-backup" }

Python example

from deskbrid import Deskbrid
client = Deskbrid()

client.schedule_add(
    name="hourly-check",
    interval_secs=3600,
    action_type="system.info",
    action_params={},
    enabled=True,
)

Notes

• Mutating scheduler state is independent of rules.* management.
• Some desktop environments may throttle timers when the session is idle.
• The scheduler runs inside the daemon; if the daemon stops, scheduled actions do not fire.