lobster-jobs

Transform OpenClaw cron jobs into Lobster workflows with approval gates and resumable execution.

Purpose

OpenClaw cron jobs are either:

• systemEvent: Simple shell commands (fully deterministic)

• agentTurn: Natural language instructions spawning AI agents (flexible but token-heavy)

Lobster workflows offer:

• Deterministic execution: No LLM re-planning each step

• Approval gates: Hard stops requiring explicit user approval

• Stateful execution: Remembers cursors/checkpoints

• Resumability: Pauses and resumes exactly where left off

This skill helps analyze existing cron jobs and transform them into Lobster workflows.

Commands

Tier 1 (Available Now)

lobster-jobs list

List all cron jobs with their Lobster readiness score.

Output categories:

• ✅ Fully Migratable: Simple shell commands (systemEvent)

• 🟡 Partial Migration: Mixed deterministic + LLM steps (agentTurn)

• ❌ Not Migratable: Heavy LLM reasoning required

lobster-jobs inspect <job-id>

Inspect a specific cron job with detailed migration assessment.

Shows:

• Job metadata (schedule, target, payload type)

• Lobster migration status and reason

• Payload preview

• Migration recommendation

lobster-jobs validate <workflow-file>

Validate a Lobster workflow YAML file against schema.

Checks:

• Required fields (name, steps)

• Step structure (id, command)

• Approval gate syntax

• Condition syntax

Tier 2 (Available Now)

lobster-jobs convert <job-id>

Transform a cron job into a Lobster workflow.

lobster-jobs convert 17fe68ca
lobster-jobs convert 17fe68ca --output-dir ~/workflows
lobster-jobs convert 17fe68ca --force  # Overwrite existing

Generates:

• .lobster workflow file in ~/.lobster/workflows/

• Extracts commands from systemEvent or agentTurn payloads

• Auto-validates generated workflow

Options:

• --output-dir, -o: Custom output directory

• --force, -f: Overwrite existing workflow

• --keep-on-error: Keep file even if validation fails

lobster-jobs new <name>

Create a new Lobster workflow from scratch using templates.

lobster-jobs new my-workflow
lobster-jobs new my-workflow --template with-approval
lobster-jobs new my-workflow --template stateful

Templates:

• simple-shell: Basic command execution

• with-approval: Approval gate workflow

• stateful: Workflow with cursor/state tracking

Installation

# Add to PATH
export PATH="$PATH:/home/art/niemand/skills/lobster-jobs/bin"

# Or create symlink
ln -s /home/art/niemand/skills/lobster-jobs/bin/lobster-jobs ~/.local/bin/

Quick Start

# See all your cron jobs and their migration status
lobster-jobs list

# Inspect a specific job
lobster-jobs inspect 17fe68ca

# Convert a job to Lobster workflow
lobster-jobs convert 17fe68ca

# Create a new workflow from template
lobster-jobs new my-workflow --template with-approval

# Validate a workflow file
lobster-jobs validate ~/.lobster/workflows/my-workflow.lobster

Workflow File Format

name: my-workflow
description: Optional description

steps:
  - id: fetch_data
    command: some-cli fetch --json

  - id: process
    command: some-cli process
    stdin: $fetch_data.stdout

  - id: approve_send
    command: approve --prompt "Send notification?"
    approval: required

  - id: send
    command: message.send --channel telegram --text "Done!"
    condition: $approve_send.approved

Migration Strategy

Wrapper Approach (Recommended)

Keep cron as scheduler, change payload to call Lobster:

{
  "payload": {
    "kind": "systemEvent",
    "text": "lobster run ~/.lobster/workflows/my-workflow.lobster"
  }
}

Benefits:

• Rollback is trivial (revert payload)

• Incremental migration

• Cron scheduling already works

Handling LLM Judgment

For jobs needing both deterministic steps and LLM reasoning:

steps:
  - id: gather
    command: gh issue list --json title,body

  - id: triage
    command: clawd.invoke
    prompt: "Classify these issues by urgency"

  - id: notify
    command: telegram-send

The workflow is deterministic; the LLM is a black-box step.

Edge Cases

References

• Lobster: https://github.com/openclaw/lobster

• Lobster VISION: https://github.com/openclaw/lobster/blob/main/VISION.md