> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.viorant.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Schedule an agent
> Run a deployed agent on its own cadence, without triggering it yourself.
A **schedule** runs a deployed agent automatically, on a cadence you set, instead of
waiting for someone to call it. One schedule per deployment.
## What a schedule is
A schedule is a cadence plus a fixed input:
* **Cadence** — a unit (minutes, hours or days), how often (every N of that unit), and
for hours and days, a time of day to align to (`:MM`, or `HH:MM`) in a timezone.
* **Input** — the same input every run gets. It's validated against that deployment's own
run inputs when you set it, so a schedule can't be saved with input the agent can't use.
## Plan limits
Each plan has a minimum cadence, enforced on the server — asking for anything faster is
refused.
| Plan | Minimum interval |
| - | - |
| Free | once a day |
| Starter | once an hour |
| Pro | every 5 minutes |
If your plan changes and an existing schedule no longer fits, it's paused — not deleted —
until you upgrade or slow it down.
## Setting it in Sentinel
Open the deployment in [Sentinel](https://sentinel.viorant.io) and use its **Schedule**
panel:
Choose minutes, hours or days, how often, and (for hours and days) a time and
timezone.
The **On / Off** toggle is the switch. Turning it **Off** keeps the cadence and input
saved — turning it back **On** resumes exactly where it left off, with its failure
count reset to zero.
## Setting it with `vio schedule`
```bash theme={"dark"}
vio schedule --every 5m
vio schedule --every 1h --at :15
vio schedule --every 1d --at 09:30 --tz Europe/London
```
* `--every 20m | 3h | 2d` — unit and count. Minutes: 5–59. Hours: 1–23. Days: 1–30.
* `--at` — required for hours (`:MM`) and days (`HH:MM`), not used for minutes.
* `--tz ` — defaults to this machine's zone.
* `--input ` — the fixed input each run gets. Leave it off on a re-time
(`vio schedule --every 1h`) and the existing input carries forward unchanged.
Turn it on and off, or clear it outright:
```bash theme={"dark"}
vio schedule on # resume
vio schedule off # pause — cadence and input stay saved
vio schedule clear # delete the schedule
```
See the full command in the [CLI reference](/cli/reference#vio-schedule).
## Failures and auto-pause
Three consecutive failed runs pause the schedule automatically. Sentinel's Schedule panel
shows **"Paused after 3 failed runs."** Turning the schedule back on resets the failure
count to zero — it doesn't need three good runs to trust it again, just one more On.
## The Scheduled badge
A run the schedule triggered is marked apart from a run you started yourself. In
Sentinel's runs list, look for the **SCHEDULED** badge in the trigger column.
## Redeploy note
Scheduling needs a signed run token that only a deployment made after scheduling shipped
carries. If yours predates it, Sentinel's Schedule panel shows:
> Redeploy this agent to enable scheduling
One `vio redeploy ` (or a redeploy from Sentinel) is enough — every deploy since
carries the token already, and you'll never see this again for that agent.
## Billing
A scheduled run is billed exactly like any other run of that agent:
* **Viorant credits**, for an agent on the Viorant-managed model (the `vio init`
default). Nothing extra to watch here.
* **Your own provider key**, for a BYOK agent. Sentinel's BYOK warning on the Schedule
panel applies only to this case — a revoked key fails those runs silently rather than
spending Viorant credits, so it's worth checking the key still works.
## Limits
* A scheduled run gets about 280 seconds to finish.
* A run still in flight when its next tick comes due is **skipped, not queued**.
* A missed time — say, if the whole platform was briefly down — is **skipped, not
replayed**. The next run is the next one from now, not a backlog of missed ones.
See runs, check status, and stop an agent.