Delaying Tasks Skill

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

/delay

Agent Delegation

This skill delegates to specialized agents via the Task tool:

delay-once

delay-poll

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.