explaingit

vicsanity623/cronbuild

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1ShellAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A scheduled script that uses AI coding agents to autonomously build, commit, and merge features into your project over time.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((CRONBUILD))
    What it does
      Reads project memory
      Runs AI coding agent
      Opens and merges PRs
    Tech stack
      Bash script
      opencode agent
      GitHub CLI
    Use cases
      Scheduled feature builds
      Unattended side projects
      Offline fallback builds
    Audience
      Developers
      Solo builders

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Let an AI agent build a new project feature by feature on a recurring schedule

USE CASE 2

Keep a side project moving forward automatically while you are away from the keyboard

USE CASE 3

Fall back to a free local model when your cloud API key hits a rate limit

What is it built with?

ShellopencodeGitHub CLIOllamaOpenRouter

How does it compare?

vicsanity623/cronbuild100/dotfilesabdellaouiamir/palworld-server
Stars111
LanguageShellShellShell
Last pushed2016-11-18
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultymoderateeasymoderate
Complexity4/51/53/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires the opencode CLI, GitHub CLI, Git, and Perl installed plus an API key for OpenRouter or Gemini.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

CRONBUILD is a script that tries to build and improve your software project automatically, on a recurring schedule, without you sitting there writing code. You point it at a project, run its setup once to add an API key, and after that a scheduled job wakes it up repeatedly, each time reading a file called MEMORY.md to see what has already been built and what should come next. On each run, CRONBUILD hands that context to an AI coding agent called opencode, which is expected to read the project's files, implement the next feature, create a Git branch, commit and push the change, and open a pull request on GitHub. Another step then merges that pull request and appends a note to MEMORY.md describing what was built and what to build next. If a run fails, CRONBUILD resets the workspace, pulls the latest main branch, and retries with the previous failure included as context, up to ten attempts per day before giving up on that cycle. To avoid ever getting completely stuck, CRONBUILD tries up to three different AI models in order: a paid or free model through OpenRouter first, Google's Gemini as a fallback if that is rate limited, and a local Ollama model as a last resort that costs nothing and has no rate limit. The README also describes a lock file mechanism so that two scheduled runs cannot overlap, and a memory compaction step that trims MEMORY.md once it grows past a few days so the file does not get too long to fit in the AI's context. The README lists example day-by-day plans for building things like a browser game or a SaaS backend over one to two weeks, suggesting the tool is meant for greenfield projects as much as existing ones. Setup requires the opencode CLI, the GitHub CLI, Git, and Perl, with Ollama as an optional extra for offline use. The project is a single bash script plus a setup script, and it is released under the MIT license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Help me run CRONBUILD's setup.sh and configure my OpenRouter API key
Prompt 2
Explain how CRONBUILD's three-tier model cascade decides which AI model to use each run
Prompt 3
Show me how to write a MEMORY.md file so CRONBUILD knows what to build next
Prompt 4
Walk me through scheduling CRONBUILD to run hourly with cron

Frequently asked questions

What is cronbuild?

A scheduled script that uses AI coding agents to autonomously build, commit, and merge features into your project over time.

What language is cronbuild written in?

Mainly Shell. The stack also includes Shell, opencode, GitHub CLI.

What license does cronbuild use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is cronbuild to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is cronbuild for?

Mainly developer.

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