delaying-tasks

Delaying Tasks Skill

Use this skill to run a delayed one-shot or bounded polling loop. Use the /delay command to invoke this skill.

Agent Delegation

This skill delegates to specialized agents via the Task tool:

Operation	Agent	Returns
One-shot delay	delay-once	JSON: success, duration, action
Bounded polling	delay-poll	JSON: success, attempts, stopped_early, action

To invoke an agent, use the Task tool with:

• Prompt file: .claude/agents/<agent-name>.md
• Parameters as documented in each agent's Inputs section

Modes

• One-shot delay: /delay --minutes N [--action "text"] or /delay --until HH:MM|ISO [--action "text"]
• Interval/polling (bounded): /delay --every 1m --for 10m [--action "text"] or /delay --every 1m --attempts 10 [--action "text"]
• Stop-on-success polling: add --stop-on-success with either --prompt <name> (uses .prompts/<name>.md) or --prompt-text "..." (auto-creates .prompts/delay-success-<ts>.md wrapping the text). The prompt must return JSON: { "Success": true|false|"true"|"false", "Cancelled": true|false|"true"|"false", "Message": "<details>" }. Cancelled=true stops immediately.
• Cancel: not supported; reject requests instead of pretending to cancel.

Behaviors

• Heartbeat: print a simple “Waiting Xm...” once per minute (or interval) to show liveness; no additional chatter.
• Completion: print the action text on completion so the caller/skill can perform the follow-up check; heartbeats + final Action line only.
• Bounds: require max duration or attempts for polling to avoid runaway loops; enforce a minimum interval (e.g., 1m) to avoid busy waiting.
• Stop-on-success: between checks, sleep via .claude/scripts/delay-run.sh --every <interval> --attempts 1 --suppress-action; after each sleep, run the success-check prompt from .prompts/ and parse JSON Success/Cancelled/Message. Stop early when Success=true or Cancelled=true; otherwise continue until attempts/duration used.
• No network-dependent work is performed by this skill; the action text is just a cue for the caller.

Agents

• delay-once: handles one-shot delays, emits heartbeats, prints action text at end.
• delay-poll: handles bounded polling (interval + max duration/attempts), emits heartbeats each interval, stops on success/timeout, prints action text at end.

Safety

• Reject unbounded polls.
• For short delays (<1m), reduce heartbeat spam (e.g., single “Waiting N seconds…” then completion).
• Return concise outputs only; no tool traces.