When to use this
Reach for scheduling and execution settings when you want a custom agent to do its work without you having to start it by hand. For example:- A morning operations summary that lands in your inbox at 6am every day.
- An agent that springs into action the moment a specific kind of alert fires — say, a delivery falling behind schedule.
- A watcher that keeps checking on an in-flight delivery until it’s resolved.
- A one-off run you kick off yourself to test the agent or get an answer right now.
Creating and changing schedules is permission-gated. Managing an agent’s runs is typically available to org admins and operations managers, not every user. If you can’t see these settings, ask your Nash administrator.
How a run works
A run is one session where the agent does its work. You configure three things that shape every run: the trigger that starts it, an optional follow-up behavior that lets it keep working over time, and the stop conditions that end it.Triggers — what starts a run
Each trigger declares one way the agent wakes up:| Trigger | What it does |
|---|---|
| On a schedule | The agent runs on a recurring clock you define (for example, daily at 6am). |
| When something happens | The agent runs when a matching Nash alert fires. The alert’s details (the job or delivery in question) are handed to the agent so its first pass already knows what it’s looking at. |
The “when something happens” trigger is closely related to the Entity monitor, which keeps watching a single delivery, order, or route until it reaches a final state.
Follow-up passes — keep working until the job is done
By default, an agent runs once per trigger and then finishes. That’s the right choice for most reporting and one-shot tasks. You can instead set the agent to keep working in follow-up passes on a fixed interval. Each follow-up pass gives the agent a fresh look at what’s changed since last time, plus a short carry-forward summary of what it found earlier — so it stays focused on the current situation rather than re-reading its whole history. This is what you want when the agent needs to watch something evolve, like checking back on a delivery every 15 minutes until it’s delivered or canceled. You choose how often the follow-up passes happen, anywhere from once a minute up to once a day.Stop conditions — when a run ends
A run ends when any of these is true:- It hits the stop condition you configured — a time limit, an event that signals the work is done, or no automatic end at all (you stop it yourself).
- It reaches a safety deadline. Every run has a hard ceiling on how long it can stay alive (12 hours by default, adjustable). This applies even to runs with no automatic end condition, so nothing runs forever.
- It hits the spend or token cap set on the agent.
- It repeatedly fails. If the agent errors several times in a row, the run stops automatically rather than spinning.
- For a watcher, the thing it was watching reaches a final state (completed, failed, canceled) or can no longer be found.
After a run finishes
Each run shows up in the agent’s run history with its status, a summary, any output it produced, and its token usage and cost. When a run finishes — whether it succeeded or failed — it can notify the people or groups you’ve configured, based on whether you want to hear about every run, only failures, or only successes.Report-only vs. auto-execute
This is the most important safety choice for an automated agent. It’s a property of the agent itself, and it applies to every run that agent produces.| Mode | What the agent does |
|---|---|
| Report only (default) | The agent investigates and writes up what it found and what it would do. It does not take any real action — anything that would change your operation is surfaced as a recommendation, not performed. |
| Auto-execute | The agent can carry out actions itself — for example, canceling a delivery, requesting a refund, or reassigning a provider — without waiting for you. |
How confirmations fit in
Even in auto-execute mode, you can keep specific destructive actions behind a human OK. For those actions, the agent pauses and surfaces a confirmation request instead of acting — the action only happens after someone approves it. If you’re watching a delivery with follow-up passes, each new pass replaces any still-pending confirmation requests from the previous pass. That way your approvals queue only ever shows the agent’s latest proposals, not stale ones.Set up a schedule
Open the agent and add a trigger
In the agent builder, add a trigger to the custom agent and choose On a schedule.
Set the recurrence
Enter how often the agent should run as a cron expression — for example,
0 6 * * * for daily at 6am. You can leave it blank as a placeholder; an empty schedule simply does nothing until you fill it in.Set the execution mode
Decide whether this agent should report only or auto-execute, and choose which destructive actions still require confirmation.
Run on demand
You don’t have to wait for a trigger. Use Run now to start a run immediately — it ignores the configured trigger and starts right away. A few things to know:- A manual run belongs to you, so it shows up in your own chat history as well as the agent’s run history.
- Manual runs always start fresh, so clicking Run now twice in a row gives you two distinct runs.
- A manual run works even if the agent is paused — it’s an explicit override on your part.
Tips & FAQ
Can one agent run on a schedule and on an event at the same time?
Can one agent run on a schedule and on an event at the same time?
Yes. Attach as many triggers as you need to a single agent. A common pattern is a daily scheduled summary plus an event trigger that fires whenever a matching alert arrives.
What stops a watcher from running forever?
What stops a watcher from running forever?
Every run has a hard safety deadline (12 hours by default, adjustable up to a week). It applies on top of whatever stop condition you chose — even a run with no automatic end is force-stopped at the deadline. A watcher also closes itself when the thing it’s watching reaches a final state.
How do I change a trigger after I've set it up?
How do I change a trigger after I've set it up?
You can edit a trigger’s details — its schedule, time zone, follow-up interval, stop condition, and on/off state. To switch a trigger to a different kind (say, from a schedule to an event), remove it and add a new one.
What's the difference between turning off a trigger and pausing the agent?
What's the difference between turning off a trigger and pausing the agent?
Turning off a single trigger stops just that one (and closes any runs it has open). Pausing the agent silences all of its triggers at once. Both leave your configuration intact so you can re-enable later.
Related
Custom agents
Define a reusable agent — its instructions, scope, tools, and output.
Entity monitor
Keep watching a delivery, order, or route until it’s resolved.
Confirmations & safety
How destructive actions are gated behind your approval.
Knowledge
Give your agents reference material to ground their work.