What is ScheduleWakeup?

What it is: A built-in feature of Claude Code that lets the AI schedule itself to come back to you later — at a specific time, on a recurring rhythm, or after a delay.
Who it’s for: Anyone using Claude Code as more than a one-shot question-and-answer tool.
Best if: You want your AI to wait for a process to finish, or check in on something on its own clock.
Skip if: You only ever ask Claude one question at a time and close the window.

Most people use AI by asking and getting an answer. Claude Code can do that, but it can also do something most chat AIs can’t: pause, wait, and resume on its own.

ScheduleWakeup is the tool inside Claude Code that makes that possible. The AI writes itself a future appointment — “wake up at 4pm and check on the build” — and at that time, Claude Code automatically resumes the same conversation, runs the check, and reports back.

Two modes

• One-shot. Fires once at a specific time, then deletes itself.
• Recurring. Fires on a schedule (using a cron expression under the hood) and keeps running until you cancel it or seven days pass — whichever comes first.

The seven-day expiration on recurring jobs is intentional. It stops half-forgotten schedules from piling up.

Where the wake-up happens

By default, ScheduleWakeup is session-only — when you close Claude Code, the schedule dies with it. There is also a durable mode that survives restarts, useful for jobs that need to fire even when you’re not at your desk.

Either way, you don’t trigger anything. The AI fires itself, runs whatever it needs to run, and surfaces the result wherever your Claude Code is listening — your terminal, a phone notification, a Slack channel.

Related

• What is Claude Code?
• What is Cron?