MCP Cron

What is MCP Cron?

MCP Cron is a Model Context Protocol server for scheduling and managing tasks through a standardized API. It supports shell commands, AI-powered tasks, and HTTP webhook tasks, with task persistence across restarts via SQLite. It's intended for developers and AI agents that need to schedule recurring or on-demand work.

How to use MCP Cron?

Install via npx -y mcp-cron and configure it in your MCP client's config file (e.g., ~/.cursor/mcp.json or Claude Desktop's config). The server supports two transport modes: HTTP (Streamable HTTP, default) and stdio. Key command-line arguments include --transport, --ai-provider, --ai-model, --db-path, and --prevent-sleep.

Key features of MCP Cron

• Schedule shell command, AI, or HTTP tasks using cron expressions
• AI tasks can use other MCP servers via a config file
• Manage tasks (add, list, run, update, remove) via MCP protocol
• Task execution with output capture and result history
• Task persistence across restarts using SQLite
• Multi-instance safe — multiple instances can share the same database

Use cases of MCP Cron

• Schedule recurring system administration scripts or maintenance commands
• Have an AI agent periodically analyze data and provide summaries
• Trigger HTTP webhooks on a cron schedule for API polling or health checks
• Run on-demand tasks (without a schedule) for ad-hoc execution via run_task

FAQ from MCP Cron

What's the difference between scheduled and on-demand tasks?

Scheduled tasks include a cron expression and run automatically on that schedule. On-demand tasks omit the schedule and sit idle until triggered via the run_task tool.

What transports does MCP Cron support?

It supports HTTP (Streamable HTTP, the default) and stdio. HTTP is for browser/network clients; stdio is for direct piping and inter-process communication.

How does sleep prevention work?

On macOS and Windows, the --prevent-sleep flag prevents the system from going idle while MCP Cron is running. It uses caffeinate on macOS and SetThreadExecutionState on Windows. Linux is not supported for sleep prevention.

What database does MCP Cron use for persistence?

It uses a local SQLite database. The default path is ~/.mcp-cron/results.db, configurable with the --db-path flag or MCP_CRON_STORE_DB_PATH environment variable.

How do I configure AI providers for AI tasks?

Use --ai-provider (openai or anthropic) and --ai-model flags, or their corresponding environment variables. API keys are set via OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, or the generic MCP_CRON_AI_API_KEY. A custom base URL (--ai-base-url) supports OpenAI-compatible endpoints like LiteLLM.