Claude/Code/Q/What is the difference between the schedule command in Claude Code CLI and Routines in Claude Desktop's Code tab?

• What is the difference between the schedule command in Claude Code CLI and Claude/Routines in Claude/Desktop/Code?

  • AI Answer

    • Answer/Official from Automate work with routines and Schedule recurring tasks in Claude Code Desktop:
    • Short answer: Desktop's Routines page is the umbrella UI for two different scheduling mechanisms under one name — Cloud routines and Local scheduled tasks. The CLI's /schedule command only reaches one of those two — Cloud routines — and has no facility at all for the other.
    • Cloud routines — the part they share: Desktop → Routines → New routine → Cloud, and CLI /schedule, both write to the same account-level list at claude.ai/code/routines. Either surface can create, list, edit, or run these; they are literally the same saved routines, just two front ends onto one backend. Runs happen unattended on Anthropic's cloud infrastructure — no permission-mode picker, no approval prompts — scoped instead by the routine's selected repositories, cloud environment, and connectors.
    • Local scheduled tasks — the part /schedule cannot touch: Desktop → Routines → New routine → Local creates a task that runs on the user's own machine, persisted as ~/.claude/scheduled-tasks/<task-name>/SKILL.md. These have a permission-mode/model picker and use local MCP connectors and local files — the opposite of a cloud routine's autonomy. The CLI has no command, flag, or tool that lists, creates, edits, or deletes these; CronList in a CLI session only reports a third, unrelated mechanism (session-local jobs from /loop/CronCreate, which expire after 7 days and disappear when the conversation ends).
    • Even within Cloud routines, /schedule is narrower than the web UI: the CLI command only configures the schedule trigger. Adding API or GitHub-event triggers to a cloud routine requires the web editor at claude.ai/code/routines.
    • See Claude/Routine for the full mechanism (what's saved, trigger types, run lifecycle, limits) and its Misconceptions section, which calls out this exact confusion directly: "Routines are the same as /loop or local Desktop schedules" is false — /loop and Desktop Local tasks both run on the local machine, while Routines (whether created from Desktop's Cloud option or from CLI /schedule) are remote cloud sessions.