Routine Design

Routines are autonomous scheduled tasks owned by individual minions. They execute skill pipelines on a cron schedule without HQ involvement.

Routine structure

{
  "name": "morning-report",
  "pipeline": ["write-daily-report", "send-to-slack"],
  "content": "Write a daily report and post it to the team Slack channel",
  "cron_expression": "0 9 * * 1-5",
  "minion_id": "<uuid>",
  "workspace_id": "<uuid|null>"
}

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Routine name
pipeline	string[]	Ordered list of skill IDs to execute
content	string|null	Description (Markdown)
cron_expression	string|null	Cron schedule
minion_id	string	UUID of the owning minion
workspace_id	string|null	Optional workspace this routine is bound to. null runs the routine in minion-wide context (only minion-wide secrets/vars are injected); a UUID binds it to a workspace, so workspace variables and workspace-scoped secrets are also exposed at execution time. MINION_ROUTINE_WORKSPACE_ID is exported to the session in either case

Pipeline execution

All skills in a routine pipeline run within a single CLI session. This means context is preserved across steps — the output of one skill is available to the next.

flowchart LR
    A["write-daily-report"] --> B["send-to-slack"]

When the CLI session completes, the runner reports the outcome (success/failure and a log-tail summary) to the minion’s local outcome API automatically.

Routines vs Workflows

Both routines and workflows execute skills on a schedule, but they differ in scope and governance. A routine runs a linear skill pipeline within one minion; a workflow is a project-scoped DAG (node/edge graph) that can branch, fan out, and span multiple minions.

The core distinction

Think of routines as a personal crontab and workflows as a CI/CD pipeline.

Aspect	Routine	Workflow (DAG)
Scope	One minion, self-contained	Project-wide, multi-minion coordination
Shape	Linear skill pipeline	Node/edge graph (parallel, fan-out/join, conditional)
Owner	Individual minion	Project
Role assignment	None — the owning minion runs everything	Per-node roles (PM / Engineer)
Review gates	None	Review nodes with human/minion approval and revision loops
Versioning	None — always uses latest skill versions	Full version history with immutable snapshots
Execution tracking	Local only (minion-side, last 200 runs)	Full audit trail in HQ database
Trigger	Cron on minion (autonomous)	Cron or on-demand from HQ

When to use which

Use a routine when:

• A single minion can complete the entire task
• No human review is needed between steps
• The task is a personal habit (daily standup prep, end-of-day review, inbox triage)
• You want lightweight, autonomous execution

Use a workflow when:

• Multiple minions need to collaborate (e.g., engineer analyzes, PM reviews)
• Human approval gates are required before certain nodes
• The task has real dependencies — parallel branches, fan-out over a list, or conditional routing
• You need an audit trail of every execution with node-level tracking
• Reproducibility matters — pinning exact skill versions is important

Example: daily report

The same skills can be used in both routines and workflows depending on the required governance level.

As a routine (one minion, autonomous):

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Routine: morning-report (weekdays 9:00)"
        A["write-daily-report"] --> B["send-to-slack"]
    end

As a workflow (project-coordinated DAG, with a review gate):

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Workflow: team-daily-report"
        A["Skill: write-daily-report<br/><i>engineer</i>"] --> R{"Review<br/><i>pm</i>"}
        R -->|approved| C["Skill: send-to-slack<br/><i>pm</i>"]
        R -. revision .-> A
    end

Notice that write-daily-report and send-to-slack are the same skills in both cases. The difference is how they are orchestrated — a workflow can add review gates, branches, and fan-out — not what the skills do.

Cron schedules

Standard cron expressions are supported (same syntax as workflow schedules).

Expression	Execution timing
0 9 * * *	Every day at 9:00
0 9 * * 1-5	Weekdays at 9:00
0 18 * * *	Every day at 18:00
0 0 * * 1	Every Monday at 0:00