Step 4: Schedule the Digest to Slack

What it is#

A schedule starts the agent on its own clock. One file under agent/schedules/ with a cron expression. The handler form gives you receive, waitUntil, and appAuth so the schedule can build the digest and hand it to a channel. Schedules are root-only; the name is the path under schedules/ (daily-digest.ts → "daily-digest").

Why you'd care#

A digest nobody triggers is useless. The schedule fires every morning, orchestrates the connections + researcher subagent, and delivers the result to Slack — fully unattended. The same durable runtime means it survives crashes and can call every tool the root has.

Before#

The agent is reactive: it only runs when you message it. The digest has to be summoned by hand.

After#

First the Slack channel it delivers to:

import { connectSlackCredentials } from "@vercel/connect/eve";
import { slackChannel } from "eve/channels/slack";

export default slackChannel({
  credentials: connectSlackCredentials("slack/my-agent"),
});

Then the schedule. Handler form because it must deliver to a channel:

import { defineSchedule } from "eve/schedules";
import slack from "../channels/slack";

export default defineSchedule({
  cron: "0 8 * * *",
  async run({ receive, waitUntil, appAuth }) {
    waitUntil(
      receive(slack, {
        message:
          "Build the daily research digest: pull recent GitHub and Linear " +
          "activity, delegate a deep-dive on each meaningful item to the " +
          "researcher subagent, then deliver one tight digest to this channel.",
        target: { channelId: "C0123ABC" },
        auth: appAuth,
      }),
    );
  },
});

• cron: "0 8 * * *" — 08:00 daily. On Vercel this evaluates in UTC.
• receive(channel, { message, target, auth }) — starts a session on the Slack channel.
• waitUntil(promise) — extends the cron task's lifetime so the parked session and in-flight subagent work settle before the task ends. Wrap receive in it.
• appAuth — the app principal; pass it as auth for work the agent does on its own behalf.

Do it yourself#

1. Add agent/channels/slack.ts with the slackChannel example, registering the slack/my-agent Connect client.
2. Add agent/schedules/daily-digest.ts with the handler above; set channelId to a real Slack channel.
3. Run eve dev. Schedules don't fire on cadence in dev, so trigger it via the dev dispatch route:

curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/eve/v1/dev/schedules/daily-digest
# -> { "scheduleId": "daily-digest", "sessionIds": ["..."] }

4. Confirm a digest session started and (once Slack creds are live) landed in the channel.
5. Try the markdown form for a fire-and-forget variant if you ever want the root to just run without a channel handoff.

Gotchas#

• eve dev does not fire cron. Use the dev dispatch route to test. A built app served with eve start does run production schedules.
• Vercel evaluates cron in UTC. "0 8 * * *" is 08:00 UTC, not your local 08:00. Shift the expression for your time zone.
• Markdown task mode can't park. It runs to completion or fails; it can't wait for a person or OAuth. You need the handler form (which parks on the channel handoff) to deliver to Slack.
• waitUntil is mandatory for channel handoff. Without it the cron task ends before the Slack session resolves and the digest may never arrive.
• Channel auth is app-scoped. The scheduled run has no end-user principal, so connectSlackCredentials("slack/my-agent") must be app-scoped, not user OAuth.

Recap#

defineSchedule with a cron + run handler wakes the agent, assembles the digest via connections and the researcher subagent, and receives it to Slack — wrapped in waitUntil. Test with the dev dispatch route. Next: deploy it to Vercel so the cron runs for real.