Jobs, Schedules & Triggers

Scheduled vs manual jobs, cron-style schedules, and how triggers let your agents react to events instead of just clocks.

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Lesson 1: Jobs Are How Agents Get Work Done

When you hire an agent, you're hiring a teammate. When you assign a job, you're telling that teammate what to do — and when to do it.

The two job types

  1. Scheduled jobs run on a clock — daily, weekly, on cron expressions. "Post 3x weekly Mon/Wed/Fri at 9 AM ET."
  2. Manual jobs run on demand — you trigger them when you need them. "Generate 5 launch-day variants when I push this button."

Most working workforces use a mix. Scheduled jobs do the routine work; manual jobs handle bursts.

Anatomy of a job

Every job has:

  • A name ("Daily Threads post", "Weekly performance recap").
  • A trigger (scheduled or manual).
  • A schedule if scheduled — interval, time, timezone.
  • A frequency label — human-readable ("3x per week").
  • An instructions field — the prompt that tells the agent what to actually produce.
  • A flag for whether the job requires voice (most do; analytics jobs don't).

Why this matters

If your jobs are vague, your output will be vague. "Post on Threads daily" gets you a daily post. "Post on Threads daily — focused on indie founder lessons, ideally a counterintuitive take, max 280 chars" gets you a good daily post.

Job instructions are where the work happens. Don't undersell them.

Lesson 2: Schedules — Time-Based Jobs

Most jobs are scheduled. The schedule is what turns a one-time prompt into a workforce.

Schedule formats Bolta supports

  1. Simple intervals — "daily", "weekly", "biweekly". Good for routine cadences.
  2. Cron expressions — 0 9 * * 1,3,5 runs at 9 AM Mon/Wed/Fri. Good for precise control.
  3. Time + timezone — Always set timezone. "9 AM" without a timezone is a recipe for posts at 4 AM in your audience's morning.

Picking a posting cadence

This is platform-specific (we'll cover platform-specific cadence in the platform courses), but a rough heuristic:

  • Threads / X — 1-3 posts per day if you have things to say.
  • Bluesky — 2-5 posts per day; the network rewards activity.
  • Instagram (Reels) — 4-7 per week, max.
  • Facebook Pages — 3-5 per week.
  • Mastodon — 1-3 per day, but engagement matters more than frequency.
  • LinkedIn — 3-5 per week. More than that and you become noise.

Start lower than you think. You can always increase.

Picking posting times

Don't overthink this. Bolta will recommend optimal times based on your audience after a few weeks of data — let it. For day one:

  1. Threads, X, Bluesky — Mid-morning (9-11 AM in your audience's timezone) and early evening (6-8 PM).
  2. Instagram — Lunchtime and evening.
  3. LinkedIn — Tuesday-Thursday, 7-9 AM.
  4. Facebook — Mid-day, mid-week.

Common myths

  1. "Posting at 3 AM gives me first-mover advantage." No — you're posting to nobody.
  2. "Posting more = more followers." Only up to a point. Past your platform's ceiling, you become noise and your engagement drops.
  3. "I should post the second I think of something." Schedule it. Posts that ride out a few hours of polishing always perform better than the rushed ones.

Lesson 3: Triggers — Event-Based Jobs

Schedules are clocks. Triggers are events. The most interesting jobs in Bolta are triggered by something happening, not by the time on a wall.

Trigger examples

  • A high-engagement comment lands on your post → Engager generates a thoughtful reply.
  • A relevant conversation appears in your niche → Hunter drafts a reply or quote-post.
  • A post hits a performance threshold → Hype-Man drafts 2 follow-up posts riding the moment.
  • A connected account follows back → Relationship Manager logs the relationship for future warm-up.

Why triggers matter

Schedules give you consistency. Triggers give you velocity. The accounts that grow fastest aren't the ones posting on the perfect schedule — they're the ones reacting to the right moments at the right speed. Triggers are how a workforce reacts at speed without you watching the timeline.

Triggers + autonomy

Triggers and autonomy interact. A Hunter on Manual will surface opportunities for you to act on. A Hunter on Auto will reply in real time. A Hunter on Aggressive will reply, follow, and quote-post — all without checking with you.

Match your autonomy to the consequences of being wrong. Replying to a public comment? Auto is usually fine. Reaching out cold to a high-value account? Manual until you trust the agent.

Common myths

  1. "Triggers are advanced — I should master schedules first." No — start with one or two simple triggers (e.g., "if a comment lands on my post, draft a reply"). Triggers are how you turn a posting workflow into an actual presence.
  2. "Triggers will fire on noise." Only if you don't filter them. Bolta lets you set thresholds — minimum follower counts, keyword filters, engagement floors.
  3. "My agents will reply on my behalf and embarrass me." Only at high autonomy. At Assisted, every triggered output still waits for your approval.

Action Steps

  1. Look at one of your agents. List its current jobs. Are they all scheduled? If yes, you're missing the velocity that triggers unlock.
  2. Add one trigger to one agent. Start small — "draft a reply when a comment lands on a post that crossed 100 likes."
  3. Watch the next 7 days. Did the trigger fire? Did the output look right? Adjust the threshold or filters as needed.

Schedules + triggers + autonomy are the three knobs that turn a Bolta workforce from "automated drafter" into "real teammate." Tune them deliberately. Next: how to talk to your agents the same way you talk to a teammate — through Telegram.