Auto-Resume Claude Code or Codex After You Reach 5h Usage Limits with at + tmux

Note#196

notes
Published

2026-01-10

Whether you know you’ll soon reach your 5h usage limit with Claude Code or Codex, or you just reached it, you’ll be happy to learn how to use the at command, that enables you to schedule a one-shot job. Combined with tmux, you’ll be able to auto-resume your coding AI agent.

Wakey Wakey

echo "
tmux has-session -t absolute-necessity 2>/dev/null || exit 0
tmux send-keys -t absolute-necessity:1.1 Enter
sleep 5
tmux send-keys -t absolute-necessity:1.1 -l 'Resume'
sleep 5
tmux send-keys -t absolute-necessity:1.1 Enter
" | at 14:00

Caveat

This relies on atd running, and at schedules in your local timezone.

Useful helpers

atq        # list queued jobs
atrm <id>  # remove a job
at -c <id>  # cat job contents