Routines are cloud-hosted scheduled Claude Code jobs. Unlike desktop scheduled tasks, they run on Anthropic infrastructure and don't need your machine to be on.

What it does

You define a routine with a schedule, a trigger (schedule, API webhook, or GitHub event), a connected repo, and a prompt. Anthropic runs the routine in a cloud environment, executes the prompt with full Claude Code capabilities, and pushes results back (to a PR, an API response, a notification). This is how you automate Claude work that has to happen even when you're offline.

When to use it

Nightly triage, release note generation, or dependency updates.
GitHub-triggered automation (run on every PR, every push to main).
API-triggered jobs from external systems.
Team automations where no single person's laptop should be the linchpin.

Gotchas

Routines run without a human watching. Make outputs fail loudly when something goes wrong.
Cloud routines can't reach your local filesystem. The target has to be a connected repo.
Pricing is usage-based - a runaway routine can rack up spend fast. Set caps.

Official docs: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/routines.md