Schedule Automated Tasks with Claude Code GitHub Actions

Claude Code GitHub Actions isn't just for PR reviews. Pair it with a cron schedule trigger and you've got an autonomous agent running tasks on a timer, no human mention needed.

name: Daily Report
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 9 * * *"
jobs:
  report:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: anthropics/claude-code-action@v1
        with:
          anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          prompt: "Generate a summary of yesterday's commits and open issues"
          claude_args: "--max-turns 5"

The key difference from interactive mode is the prompt parameter. When you provide a prompt without a comment trigger, the action runs immediately in automation mode. Claude checks out your repo, processes the prompt, and posts the result.

Good candidates for scheduled runs include daily commit summaries, weekly dependency audit reports, stale issue triage, and changelog generation. Keep --max-turns low to control costs, since scheduled jobs don't have a human watching.

Set it, schedule it, and let Claude report back every morning.

via Claude Code Docs — GitHub Actions