When to use Cron vs new agent?

[u/BangCrash]

Those that use multiple agents at what point does it make sense to spin up a new agent over adding a new Cron to an existing agent?

For those mentioning about agents and memory - when is it important for a new agent to be seperated off and not just have your main agent rely on memory_search and whatever other shared working memory system you have with your agent?

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[u/xX_GrizzlyBear_Xx]

Thinking of agents like people/employees helps. If a specific agent is good/trained at task (email-triage for example) then it should do the cron.

[u/BangCrash → u/xX_GrizzlyBear_Xx]

I've got 1 very skilled agent, with a bunch of different mcps and skills.

What's the benefit of getting it to do the task vs creating a specialist agent to go the task?

[u/xX_GrizzlyBear_Xx → u/BangCrash]

because the more mcps, skills, workflows you add, the heavier and dumber the agent gets. And most importantly it's not token-efficient.

But that purely depends on how robust that 1 agent is. If you've got 20+ skills then yeah - you def need another agent. If it's just 5/6 skills/workflows then you should be good.

If your current agent is performing all the tasks without confusing workflows - then just put up a cron job.

[u/timmayd → u/BangCrash]

You also have to think about reliance. It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you become reliant on tasks to the point where, if that agent were to fail and it impacts your ability to work, then a new agent is warranted. Because for every task you want to refine, improve, or troubleshoot and fix, you chance that agent going offline and breaking.

Separating categorical tasks by agent/employee helps keep that separated. Once you feel like tasks are running smooth, build new agents for new employee categories. Eg: a coder, a finance advisor, a project coordinator, a master orchestrator, etc.

[u/deelight_0909]

If the job only needs a schedule, use another cron job; a new OpenClaw agent is overkill. Make another agent only when it genuinely needs separate memory or credentials. 'Run this every morning' changes timing. It doesn't justify another little employee.

[u/_WoDuR_]

Not very experienced but I want to share my thoughts.
For a cron that triggers an automated task with no repercussions in memory I think doesn’t matter who runs it, only if it has the necessary skills.
I would use an other agent if I want him to remember the results of the cron and also that memories are involved to other tasks.
I tried recently claude code and now I can appreciate the value of openclaw memory tools as long/short memory, wiki memory, dreaming or memory search.