---
id: background-jobs/a-repeating-prompt-on-the-background-job
title: "A repeating prompt on the background-job starter"
theme: background-jobs
status: open
created: 2026-08-20
date_source: stated
order: 1
---

**A repeating prompt on the background-job starter.** An option beside the existing controls: send
this agent a message every N minutes or hours. This is the Nudger from 2026-08-20 in the place it
actually belongs — attached to a job that is already running, rather than a separate schedule
pointing at a session that may not exist.
The hard-won part is already written down: `api/chat/nudger.ts` refuses when the session is not
live, when it is generating, and when any other session is live in the same tree — because "not
generating" was once treated as permission and started a second agent in a repository another was
building in. Whatever shape this takes, it inherits those three refusals.