Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

openclaw cron add --at "HH:MM" --tz <IANA> fails with "Invalid --at" because time-only strings (HH:MM) are not recognized by the parser. Additionally, --tz has no effect on --at even when using supported datetime formats, making timezone-aware one-shot scheduling non-intuitive from the CLI.

This is a common UX pattern �� users expect --at "09:00" --tz Asia/Shanghai to "just work", similar to how crontab.guru and most scheduling tools handle local times.

Affects: all users who use cron add --at with time-only strings or --tz.

Steps to reproduce

# Attempt: time-only string
openclaw cron add --name "test" --at "09:00" --tz "Asia/Shanghai" --message "hello"
# Error: Invalid --at; use ISO time or duration like 20m

Expected behavior

--at "09:00" --tz Asia/Shanghai should schedule the job at 09:00 in the given timezone today. At minimum, the error message should clearly state what formats are accepted.

Actual behavior

Bug 1 �� HH:MM not supported at all:

src/cron/parse.ts normalizeUtcIso() only handles three patterns:

• YYYY-MM-DD �� appends T00:00:00Z
• YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM �� appends Z
• strings with timezone suffix (Z / +08:00) �� pass through

A bare HH:MM string falls through all branches, is returned unchanged, and Date.parse("09:00") returns NaN on most platforms. Result: parseAbsoluteTimeMs returns null �� parseAt returns null �� CLI throws "Invalid --at".

Bug 2 �� --tz silently ignored for --at:

src/cli/cron-cli/shared.ts parseAt() only applies timezone when isOffsetlessIsoDateTime(raw) is true. That regex is /^\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}T\d{2}:\d{2}/ �� time-only strings never reach the timezone branch. The --help text says --tz is "Timezone for cron expressions", implying it only applies to --cron. But users naturally expect --at "09:00" --tz Asia/Shanghai to work.

Relevant code

• src/cron/parse.ts �� normalizeUtcIso() and parseAbsoluteTimeMs()
• src/cli/cron-cli/shared.ts �� parseAt()
• src/cli/cron-cli/schedule-options.ts �� resolveDirectSchedule()

Suggested fix

1. Add HH:MM / HH:MM:SS pattern support: when --tz is provided and input matches HH:MM, resolve it as today's wall-clock time in that timezone
2. Update --help text to clarify --tz scope (applies to --cron and offset-less --at, not bare time strings)

Workaround

Use a full ISO datetime with explicit UTC offset instead:

openclaw cron add --at "2026-04-02T01:00:00Z" --message "hello"

(Manually convert your local time to UTC first)

Related

• Active fix PR: fix(cron): support HH:MM time-only strings in --at; apply --tz to time-only input #70046
• --tz help text improvement: [Docs/UX]: help text is misleading — says "cron expressions" only, but should also apply to datetime strings #59456 / fix(cli): clarify --tz help text for offset-less --at values #69975

Environment

• OpenClaw: checked against main branch
• Node.js: v22.12.0
• OS: Linux (sandbox)
• Reproduction: consistent

Suggested labels: bug, cli, ux

Related: #70046