A schedule is a list of actions that fire on a timer. It is the difference between a server that needs you every day and one that looks after itself between the times you actually want to play.
Schedules worth having
| Schedule | When | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Restart | Once daily, at your quietest hour | Clears accumulated memory pressure before it becomes lag. |
| Backup | Daily, before the restart | A restart is the safest moment to copy a world. |
save-all | Every 15–30 minutes | Limits how much a crash can cost you. |
| Warning message | 5 and 1 minutes before a restart | Nobody loses a build because they had no notice. |
Building a restart with warnings
- Create the schedule at your chosen time
Pick genuinely quiet hours based on when people actually play, not on what sounds late.
- Add a command task first
say Restarting in 5 minutes— a command task runs in the console exactly as if you typed it. - Add a second warning with a delay
Tasks in one schedule run in order, each after its own delay. Four minutes later,
say Restarting in 1 minute. - Add
save-all, then the restartA save immediately before the power action means the world on disk is current even if the shutdown is untidy.
A schedule set for 4 a.m. in the wrong timezone fires in the middle of your evening. Confirm what timezone the schedule uses before assuming the number means what you think — this catches nearly everyone once.
Hourly restarts are a symptom, not a strategy. If your server needs one, something is leaking, and finding it is a better use of an hour than covering for it forever. Once a day is normal; four times a day is a question worth asking.
Watch it fire once. The warning appears in chat, the save runs, and the server comes back on its own.