4. A reminder job, then run it

A todo list should nag you. We’ll add a background job that checks for overdue todos once a day and shows a warning.

Add the job

vsceasy job add --name dueReminder --title "Due Todo Reminder" --dailyAt "09:00"

✓ Job "dueReminder" added.

  + src/jobs/dueReminder.ts

job add supports several schedule shapes — pick one:

Flag	Fires
--every "30s"	on an interval (30s, 5m, 2h, 1d)
--dailyAt "09:00"	once a day at local time
--on startup	on a VS Code event (startup, saveDocument, …)
--onFile "**/*.md"	when matching files change

The runtime registers the timer on activate and cleans it up on deactivate — you only write the work.

Fill in the work

The generated job is a stub. Replace its run to query overdue todos with the same TodosRepo() the panels use, and warn if any are past due:

src/jobs/dueReminder.ts

import { defineJob } from '../shared/vsceasy';
import { TodosRepo } from '../models/Todo';

export default defineJob({
  title: 'Due Todo Reminder',
  schedule: { dailyAt: '09:00' },
  run: async (vscode) => {
    const now = Date.now();
    const todos = await TodosRepo().findMany();
    const overdue = todos.filter(
      (t) => !t.done && t.dueDate && new Date(t.dueDate).getTime() < now,
    );
    if (overdue.length === 0) return;

    const titles = overdue.map((t) => t.title).join(', ');
    vscode.window.showWarningMessage(
      `${overdue.length} overdue todo${overdue.length > 1 ? 's' : ''}: ${titles}`,
    );
  },
});

Because the job and the panels share TodosRepo() and the Todo type, this is fully type-checked — t.done, t.dueDate, t.title are all known fields.

Testing a daily job

A dailyAt job won’t fire on demand. To see the notification while developing, temporarily switch the schedule to { every: '10s' }, reload, and add a todo with a past dueDate. Switch it back when you’re done.

Build and launch

Everything is wired. Build and open the Extension Development Host:

bun run launch

This builds the extension + webviews and opens a new VS Code window titled [Extension Development Host]. Open the Todos view from the activity bar to use the list and form.

Inside VS Code you can instead press F5 (after bun run dev) for a watch-mode loop: edit a panel, reload the host, see the change.

What you built

Starting from an empty project, four commands produced:

• a typed, persisted Todo model (db init + model add),
• a full list + form UI with typed RPC and an activity-bar menu (crud add),
• a daily overdue-reminder notification (job add),

and bun run gen kept package.json and the registry in sync the whole way.

The CRUD step already gave us an activity-bar menu. The next steps go deeper into how that menu works and what else can dock inside it.

Next: menus — the navigation model →

Reference

• The mini-ORM — queries, indexes, and providers behind TodosRepo().
• Typed RPC — how the host ↔ webview bridge stays type-safe.
• CRUD scaffolding — customizing generated fields via crud.config.ts.
• Publishing — ship your extension to the Marketplace.