Agent-skills delayed-command

This skill should be used when the user asks to "run npm test after 30 minutes", "git commit after 1 hour", "wait 2h then deploy", "sleep 45m and run build", "after 10m run prettier", or provides a duration followed by a shell command to execute later.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/PaulRBerg/agent-skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/PaulRBerg/agent-skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/delayed-command" ~/.claude/skills/paulrberg-agent-skills-delayed-command && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/delayed-command/SKILL.md

source content

Delayed Command Execution

Wait for a specified duration, then execute a Bash command.

Arguments

duration: Time to wait before execution (e.g.,
```
30s
```
,
```
5m
```
,
```
1h
```
,
```
1h30m
```
)
command: The Bash command to run after the delay

Duration Format

Format	Example	Meaning
`Xs`	`30s`	30 seconds
`Xm`	`5m`	5 minutes
`Xh`	`1h`	1 hour
`XhYm`	`1h30m`	1 hour 30 minutes
`XhYmZs`	`1h5m30s`	1 hour 5 min 30 s

Workflow

1. Parse Duration

Convert the duration argument to seconds:

Extract hours (
```
h
```
), minutes (
```
m
```
), and seconds (
```
s
```
) components
Calculate total seconds:
```
hours * 3600 + minutes * 60 + seconds
```

Parsing logic:

duration="$1"
seconds=0

# Extract hours
if [[ $duration =~ ([0-9]+)h ]]; then
  seconds=$((seconds + ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} * 3600))
fi

# Extract minutes
if [[ $duration =~ ([0-9]+)m ]]; then
  seconds=$((seconds + ${BASH_REMATCH[1]} * 60))
fi

# Extract seconds
if [[ $duration =~ ([0-9]+)s ]]; then
  seconds=$((seconds + ${BASH_REMATCH[1]}))
fi

2. Execute with Delay

For durations up to 10 minutes (600 seconds):

Run synchronously using the Bash tool with appropriate timeout:

sleep <seconds> && <command>

Set the Bash tool's

timeout

parameter to at least

(seconds + 60) * 1000

milliseconds.

For durations over 10 minutes:

Run in background using

run_in_background: true

sleep <seconds> && <command>

Inform the user the command is running in background and provide the task ID for checking status.

3. Report Result

After execution completes:

Display command output
Report exit status
Note total elapsed time

Examples

Short Delay (Synchronous)

User:

/delayed-command 5m npm test

Parse: 5 minutes = 300 seconds
Execute:
```
sleep 300 && npm test
```
(timeout: 360000ms)
Report test results

Long Delay (Background)

User:

/delayed-command 1h git commit -m "auto-commit"

Parse: 1 hour = 3600 seconds

Execute in background:

sleep 3600 && git commit -m "auto-commit"

Return task ID for status checking

Combined Duration

User:

/delayed-command 1h30m ./deploy.sh

Parse: 1h30m = 5400 seconds
Execute in background (>600s):
```
sleep 5400 && ./deploy.sh
```
Inform user of background task

Error Handling

Error	Response
Invalid duration format	Show supported formats and examples
Missing command argument	Prompt for the command to execute
Command not found	Report error after delay completes
Duration exceeds 24h	Warn user and suggest alternative (cron, at)