ElianBot

An AI-controlled local script scheduler. One job = one .sh file on disk, run by plain deterministic code — on a cron schedule or on click. The AI (any MCP client: Grok, Claude, Cursor, …) writes the script once; ElianBot runs it forever — free, offline, and reproducible. No tokens burned per run.

The idea in one line: AI for creation, code for execution.

AI writes script ──▶ ElianBot schedules & runs it ──▶ output routed anywhere
        (once)              (forever, free)          (feed · jobs · notify · webhook)

Quick start

npm install     # once (installs Electron)
npm start       # open the app — open = the scheduler runs; closed = nothing fires
npm test        # headless engine checks (cron, safety, mentions, webhooks)

macOS: double-click ElianBot.command — it installs on first run, then launches.

Related MCP server: vanth

The app

A small Electron window with two tabs:

• Jobs — job list + detail pane. Per job: Run now, Pause, Edit, Delete, reveal script/log in Finder. Schedules are built with plain dropdowns (every X minutes / hourly / daily / weekdays / weekly / monthly at a time); a raw cron field stays underneath for power users, with a live plain-English preview ("weekdays at 08:00 — next: Mon 08:00").

• Dashboard — a calendar of past runs (green = ok, red = failed, blue = scheduled, computed from the crons), a per-day timeline with one-click log viewing, and the live message feed.

• A "?" button opens the built-in manual.

Every finished run auto-pings: a feed entry plus a macOS notification (failures ping with sound).

Routing output with @ lines

A job talks by printing lines that start with @:

Each job also has a WEBHOOK panel in the UI: paste a URL and (optionally) an Authorization value — every successful run then POSTs its output there. The secret is written straight into a local, gitignored secrets.json; it can never be read back from the UI and never appears in output, feed, logs, or git. Any paste shape works: bare key, Bearer key, or a full Authorization: … header line.

What a script receives as environment:

AI remote control (MCP)

mcp.js is a zero-dependency MCP stdio server. Register it in any MCP client:

{ "command": "node", "args": ["/path/to/elianbot/mcp.js"] }

Tools: list_jobs · get_job · create_job · update_job · run_job · pause_job · resume_job · get_output · read_messages · send_message · delete_job.

The AI can create a job from a plain script body (create_job with script_content), set its schedule and webhook URL, hand a run input, and read every outcome from the feed. Each job carries a description — the original prompt that created it, shown read-only in the UI as a record (never executed).

One brain rule: the MCP only edits data files and queues run requests; the open app is the only thing that ever executes a job.

Included template: video brief

templates/video-brief.sh turns any text (typically another job's output, via @video-brief) into a narrated MP4 — designed title cards, Ken Burns motion, crossfades, per-slide narration — using only free native tools (say, qlmanage, sips, ffmpeg). No AI at runtime.

Safety model (small on purpose)

• A job runs as spawn("/bin/bash", [script_path]) — the script path is argv and job values are env vars. Nothing a job contains is ever parsed as shell source, so there is no injection surface.

• All JSON writes are atomic (tmp + rename).

• AI-written scripts land in scripts/ with unique names — never overwriting.

• delete_job requires confirm:true and never deletes script files.

• Secrets live only in a local gitignored file, referenced by name.

Data layout

Everything lives in data/ next to the app (the green tab in the header shows the location — click it to move everything elsewhere; the choice persists):

jobs.json       job configs (the MCP edits this too)
state.json      run results, history (app-only)
messages.json   the feed: pings, @grok mentions, handoffs
secrets.json    Authorization values, by name (gitignored, local only)
scripts/        AI-written .sh files
runs/<id>/      one log per run
requests/       run-now queue (MCP → app)
videos/         rendered video briefs

Stack

Electron + vanilla JS, zero runtime dependencies beyond Electron itself. Engine, cron parser, MCP protocol: ~1,200 lines total, all readable in one sitting. Tests run headless with no Electron.

License

MIT