Claude Code: The Two Claude Code Schedulers That Run on Your Machine, and When to Use Each

Claude Code introduces two local scheduling tools—/loop for polling inside a live session and Desktop scheduled tasks for recurring work without an open session—to help users automate tasks on their own machines. The tools offer three modes of /loop and missed-run catch-up, aiming to reduce the complexity of choosing the right automation method for recurring work.

Member-only story Claude Code: The Two Claude Code Schedulers That Run on Your Machine, and When to Use Each Part 6: Cloud Routines stop at a one-hour floor. For recurring work tied to your local files, you have /loop and Desktop scheduled tasks. Here is how to pick the right one the first time. You know the feeling: you finally automate one tedious thing, breathe for half a second, and then the next task refuses to fit the tool you picked. The cadence is wrong. The laptop sleeps. The cloud job costs more than the work deserves. Suddenly “automation” feels less like leverage and more like another system you have to babysit. That is the quiet tax of recurring work: not doing the task, but choosing where it should live. Claude Code gives you three scheduling options, but the win is not memorizing features. It is knowing, in the moment, whether the work belongs in the cloud, on your machine, or inside the session you already have open. In this article:You will learn the two Claude Code scheduling tools that run locally instead of in the cloud: /loopfor polling inside a live session, and Desktop scheduled tasks for recurring work that does not need a session open. We cover the three modes of /loop, the missed-run catch-up…