Do routines need a paid plan?

Yes — scheduling is one of the two paid features (the other is connectors). Manual runs stay free.

How often should a digest run?

Weekly is the right default for almost every template here — often enough to be current, rare enough that each run gets read.

Fix the prompt or memory, run manually until it's right, then re-enable the schedule. Don't let a bad routine run on hope.

Schedule only after a manual run looks right — a routine repeats whatever the agent does now, including the mistakes.

Run the agent manually first — never schedule something you haven’t watched work.
Set the cadence the workflow actually needs: weekly for digests and reports, daily for follow-ups, hourly for triage.
Anchor it to a real moment — Monday 08:00 before standup, Friday 16:00 before the week-end review — not an arbitrary default.
Check the first two scheduled outputs like a code review. If they’re right, the recipe holds.
Re-check whenever you change a memory or a connector — the routine runs the current recipe, not the one you verified.

Scheduling on day one — you haven’t seen the output yet. Earn the schedule with two good manual runs.
Hourly because you can — a digest nobody reads hourly becomes noise that gets muted forever.
Editing the prompt and forgetting the routine — the schedule fires the new prompt at 23:00 Friday. Test changes manually first.

When a single agent’s context gets crowded, multi-bot workflows split the work into a pipeline.