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Scheduled Trigger Node

The Recurrent Event node triggers your workflow on a schedule. Define when and how often your automation runs, from every few minutes to weekly or monthly intervals.

When to Use

  • Daily reports - Generate and send summaries every morning
  • Data synchronization - Sync records between systems hourly
  • Monitoring - Check service status at regular intervals
  • Reminders - Send scheduled notifications to team members
  • Cleanup tasks - Archive old data weekly or monthly

Example: Daily Sales Summary

Send a daily sales report to your team every morning:
1

Configure the schedule

Add a Recurrent Event node:
  • Schedule type: daily
  • Time: 09:00
  • Timezone: America/New_York
2

Fetch sales data

Connect to an External API node that queries your CRM or database for yesterday’s sales.
3

Generate the report

Use an LLM node to summarize the data:
Create a brief sales summary for {{recurrent_event_1.scheduledTime}}:

Total sales: {{external_api_1.totalSales}}
New customers: {{external_api_1.newCustomers}}
Top products: {{external_api_1.topProducts}}

Format as a Slack message with highlights and any concerns.
4

Send to Slack

Connect to an External API node (Slack) to post the summary to your sales channel.

Example: Hourly Website Monitor

Check if your website is responding and alert if it’s down:
Workflow: Website Health Check
├── Recurrent Event (every 15 minutes)
├── HTTP Request (GET https://yoursite.com/health)
├── Condition (check status code == 200)
│   ├── Met: Set Variable (lastHealthyCheck = now)
│   └── Unmet: External API (send Slack alert)

Schedule Types Explained

Interval

Runs repeatedly with a fixed gap between executions.
Every 30 minutes → 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30...
Minimum interval is 5 minutes to prevent excessive resource usage.

Daily

Runs once per day at the specified time.
Daily at 09:00 America/New_York

Weekly

Runs on specific days at the specified time.
Weekly on Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 14:00 UTC

Monthly

Runs on specific dates each month.
Monthly on the 1st and 15th at 08:00 Europe/London
If a date doesn’t exist in a month (like the 31st in February), that execution is skipped.

Cron Expressions

For advanced scheduling, use standard cron syntax:
┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
│ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
│ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1 - 31)
│ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0 - 6, Sunday = 0)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *
Examples:
  • 0 9 * * 1-5 - 9 AM on weekdays
  • 0 */2 * * * - Every 2 hours
  • 0 0 1 * * - Midnight on the 1st of each month
  • 30 8 * * 1 - 8:30 AM every Monday

Timezone Handling

Always set the timezone explicitly to avoid confusion. UTC is the default but rarely what users expect for business workflows.
Common timezones:
  • America/New_York (Eastern)
  • America/Los_Angeles (Pacific)
  • Europe/London
  • Europe/Paris
  • Asia/Tokyo
  • Australia/Sydney

Missed Executions

If the application is stopped during a scheduled time, that execution is missed. CogniAgent does not “catch up” on missed executions when the application restarts.
For critical scheduled tasks, consider adding monitoring to verify executions occurred.

Tips

Start with a longer interval during development (e.g., hourly), then tighten it once the workflow is tested.
Use the executionCount output to implement logic that runs differently on the first execution versus subsequent runs.

Settings

name
string
default:"Recurrent Event"
Display name shown on the canvas.
key
string
default:"recurrent_event_1"
Unique identifier for referencing outputs.
scheduleType
string
required
The type of schedule:
  • interval - Run every X minutes/hours
  • daily - Run once per day at a specific time
  • weekly - Run on specific days of the week
  • monthly - Run on specific days of the month
  • cron - Advanced scheduling with cron expressions
intervalMinutes
number
For interval type: number of minutes between runs. Minimum: 5 minutes.
timeOfDay
string
For daily/weekly/monthly: time to run in HH:MM format (24-hour).
daysOfWeek
array
For weekly: which days to run. Array of day names or numbers (0=Sunday).
daysOfMonth
array
For monthly: which dates to run (1-31).
cronExpression
string
For cron type: standard cron expression (e.g., 0 9 * * 1-5).
timezone
string
default:"UTC"
Timezone for the schedule (e.g., America/New_York, Europe/London).

Outputs

scheduledTime
string
ISO timestamp of when this execution was scheduled.
executionCount
number
How many times this recurrent event has triggered (since application start).
previousExecutionTime
string
ISO timestamp of the previous execution (null for first run).