Scheduling AI Agent Jobs on macOS - Launchd vs Cron for Reliability
If you're running AI agent jobs on macOS - automated code reviews, scheduled data processing, periodic backups - you need a reliable scheduler. Most developers default to cron because it's familiar. On macOS, launchd is almost always the better choice.
Why Cron Falls Short on macOS
Cron works fine for simple schedules, but it has real limitations on modern macOS. If your Mac is asleep when a cron job is supposed to run, it just doesn't run. No retry, no catch-up, no notification. The job silently fails.
Apple has also progressively deprioritized cron. It still works, but it's not the native system and doesn't integrate with macOS power management, networking, or security features.
Launchd Advantages for AI Agent Jobs
Launchd handles missed jobs by running them as soon as the system wakes up. Set StartCalendarInterval in your plist and launchd guarantees the job runs - even if the Mac was sleeping at the scheduled time.
Crash recovery is built in. If your AI agent process crashes, launchd restarts it automatically with KeepAlive or ThrottleInterval. Cron has no concept of process health monitoring.
You also get proper logging through the unified log system, resource limits, network dependency awareness with NetworkState, and integration with macOS sandboxing.
Setting Up a Launchd Agent
Create a plist in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/. Define your schedule, point to your script, set environment variables, and load it with launchctl. The plist format is verbose compared to a crontab line, but the reliability tradeoff is worth it for anything that matters.
For AI agent workflows that run overnight or process data on a schedule, launchd's catch-up behavior alone justifies the switch. Your agents run when they should, not just when your Mac happens to be awake.
Fazm is an open source macOS AI agent. Open source on GitHub.