Automations: apps that work while you sleep

An app doesn’t only have to run when someone opens it. Ask for a schedule — “email me the day’s bookings every morning at seven” — and Croft runs it on time, day after day, even after an update or a reboot. That’s an automation: a small job your app does on its own, and it’s now built into every croft.

The everyday version needs no AI at all. A reminder that goes out each morning. Last night’s sales pulled in from another service at 2am. A weekly summary of survey responses that just arrives in your inbox on Friday. The recurring, tedious jobs quietly handle themselves.

Add your own AI and an automation can think, not just move data around. A morning briefing that gathers what you care about and boils it down to a page before you’re at your desk. A form submission that gets scored and sorted the moment it lands. Notes you drop in through the week, turned into draft posts every Monday. It reads, summarises, and decides — then emails you, alerts you, or updates an app.

We call these automations, not “agents.” They don’t wander off and improvise; they do one job well, on a schedule or when something happens, exactly as you set them up. And you set them up the same way you build everything on Croft — by asking your assistant in plain words, not by writing code.

It all runs on your own private server, on your flat plan price, using your own AI account for the thinking. No per-run metering, no surprise bills.

See what automations can do →

More from the blog