Daily Report Scheduler

In this tutorial you will configure NanoGemClaw to send an automated daily summary to a Telegram group every morning at 8 AM. You will learn how to write effective prompts for scheduled tasks, configure timezones, use cron expressions for advanced scheduling, and monitor task runs from the dashboard.

Time to complete: ~15 minutes

Goal

By the end of this tutorial you will have:

• A scheduled task that fires every weekday at 8 AM in your timezone
• A prompt that generates a useful daily summary
• An understanding of cron expressions for advanced schedules
• A working monitoring view in the dashboard

Prerequisites

• NanoGemClaw is installed and running (npm run dev)
• You have at least one registered Telegram group
• The dashboard is accessible at http://localhost:3000

Step 1 — Create a scheduled task with natural language

NanoGemClaw's scheduler understands plain English schedule descriptions as well as standard cron expressions.

Open the Tasks page:

1. Log in to the dashboard at http://localhost:3000.
2. Click Tasks in the left sidebar.
3. Click New Task.

Fill in the task form:

• Group: Select the group where the report should be sent.
• Schedule: Type every day at 8am
• Prompt: Leave this blank for now — you will write it in Step 2.

Click Save.

Natural language schedule examples

The scheduler accepts a wide range of English phrases:

Phrase	Equivalent cron
every day at 8am	0 8 * * *
every weekday at 9:00	0 9 * * 1-5
every Monday at 7am	0 7 * * 1
every hour	0 * * * *
in 30 minutes	(one-time, 30 min from now)
tomorrow at noon	(one-time)

Step 2 — Write a prompt that generates useful daily summaries

The prompt is the instruction Gemini receives when the task fires. A well-crafted prompt produces structured, scannable output.

Edit the task you just created:

1. Click the task in the Tasks list.
2. Paste the following into the Prompt field:

Generate a concise morning briefing for our team. Include:

1. **Date and day** — State today's date and day of the week.
2. **Daily focus** — A one-sentence motivational reminder about consistent progress.
3. **Key reminders** — 3 short bullet points about things the team should keep in mind today (vary these each day to keep it fresh).
4. **Question of the day** — One thought-provoking question to spark discussion in the group.

Keep the total response under 200 words. Format it clearly with bold headers. End with "Have a great day!"

Click Save.

Prompt design principles for scheduled tasks

• Be specific about format. Ask for bullet points, numbered lists, or headers explicitly.
• Set a length limit. Gemini is generous with words; a ceiling keeps reports skimmable.
• Ask for variation. Without it, the same phrases repeat daily and people stop reading.
• Test with a one-time trigger. Set the schedule to in 1 minute, check the result in Telegram, then switch back to the daily schedule.

Step 3 — Configure timezone

Scheduled times are interpreted in the timezone set by the TZ environment variable. Without it, the system's local timezone is used — which may not match your team's location.

Set the timezone in .env:

TZ=America/New_York

Common timezone values:

Location	TZ value
New York	America/New_York
Los Angeles	America/Los_Angeles
London	Europe/London
Berlin	Europe/Berlin
Tokyo	Asia/Tokyo
Taipei	Asia/Taipei
Sydney	Australia/Sydney

All standard IANA timezone names are accepted.

Restart the bot after changing .env:

# Stop the running process (Ctrl+C), then:
npm run dev

Timezone affects all tasks

The TZ variable applies globally. All scheduled tasks use the same timezone. If you have users in multiple timezones, schedule reports in the timezone of the majority of your group members.

Step 4 — Use cron expressions for advanced scheduling

Natural language covers common schedules, but cron expressions give you precise control.

Cron syntax:

┌─────────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌───────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌─────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌───── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌─── day of week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Useful examples:

Weekdays only

# 8 AM Monday through Friday
0 8 * * 1-5

Twice daily

# 8 AM and 6 PM every day
0 8,18 * * *

Weekly on Friday

# Friday at 5 PM — end-of-week summary
0 17 * * 5

First day of month

# Monthly report on the 1st at 9 AM
0 9 1 * *

Every 30 minutes

# Status check every half hour during business hours
*/30 9-17 * * 1-5

To use a cron expression in the task form, type it directly into the Schedule field instead of a natural language phrase.

Validate your cron expressions

Paste any cron expression into crontab.guru to see a plain English description of when it fires before saving the task.

Step 5 — Monitor task runs from the Dashboard

The dashboard gives you full visibility into task execution history.

View task run logs:

1. Go to the Tasks page.
2. Click on a task to open its detail view.
3. The Run History section shows each execution with:
   • Timestamp of when the task ran
   • Duration in milliseconds
   • Status (success or error)
   • The full response that was sent to Telegram

What to look for:

• A success status with a non-empty result means the message was sent to Telegram.
• An error status means Gemini returned an error or the message failed to send. Check the error field for details.
• If a task does not appear in Run History at the expected time, verify the TZ setting and confirm the bot process was running at that time.

Real-time monitoring

The Logs page streams all bot activity via Socket.IO. When a scheduled task fires you will see it appear in the live log alongside regular chat messages.

Example prompts for different report types

Mix and match these prompt templates to build reports suited to your group.

Team Standup

Generate a daily standup prompt for our engineering team. Include:
- Today's date (weekday and date)
- A reminder to update tickets before the standup call
- Three open questions for team members to answer: (1) What did you finish yesterday? (2) What will you work on today? (3) Any blockers?
Keep it under 150 words and use a friendly tone.

News Digest

You are a news digest assistant. For today's morning briefing:
1. Identify the current date and note it at the top.
2. Summarize 3 technology trends or developments that would interest a software developer audience.
3. Add one interesting fact unrelated to technology.
Use bullet points and keep the total under 200 words. Do not fabricate specific news items — draw on your training knowledge and note that information may not be fully current.

Weather & Motivation

Generate a motivational morning message that includes:
- A weather-appropriate greeting (vary by season based on the current date)
- An inspirational quote attributed to a real person
- One actionable productivity tip for the day
Keep it under 120 words and end with a positive closing line.

Weekly Retrospective

It's the end of the week. Generate a structured weekly retrospective prompt for our team:
1. State the week number and date range.
2. Ask the team: What went well this week?
3. Ask the team: What could be improved?
4. Ask the team: What is one goal for next week?
5. Add a short congratulatory note to close out the week positively.
Format with numbered sections. Keep it under 180 words.

Combine with knowledge base

If you upload relevant documents (e.g., a project status file), the bot can reference them in scheduled reports. Update the document weekly and the reports stay current without changing the prompt.