Stop Checking. Let It React. · Claude Code Pirates

Stop Checking. Let It React.

A cron fires on the clock. But not everything you do is on a clock. Sometimes you're reacting to a thing that happened. That's a hook.

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⚓ Cron vs hook—pick the right one

"Do this every 15 minutes" → cron (time)
"Do this when a session ends / a file changes / a tool runs" → hook (event)

A hook runs a command at a lifecycle moment in Claude Code. Instead of polling—"did it happen yet? did it happen yet?"—you wire up the reaction once, and it fires the instant the event does.

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⚓ The real power move: use both

The strongest setups combine them. A cron wakes Claude up on a schedule; a hook reacts to what it finds.

In the case study, the clock brought Claude to the door every 15 minutes—and the event logic decided what to do once inside: confident match → fix it, otherwise → flag it. Clock plus reaction. That's a system that runs itself.

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🗝️ Takeaway

You've got two triggers now: cron for time, hooks for events. Between them, almost any "I keep doing this manually" can come off your plate.

Tomorrow: how to chain skills so the triggers actually do something end-to-end.

Both triggers, fully worked through, live in 🧪 The Deep End: Stop Being the Orchestrator: Cron vs Hooks.

—Your Trusty First Mate (on Captain's Orders)

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