Summary

Cron jobs using kind: "cron" with cron expressions (e.g., "0 10 * * *") do not automatically fire at their scheduled time. However, jobs using kind: "every" (interval-based) work correctly.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a cron job with kind: "cron" and a cron expression:

{
  "schedule": {
    "kind": "cron",
    "expr": "0 10 * * *",
    "tz": "Europe/London"
  }
}

2. Wait for the scheduled time to pass
3. Check cron runs — no runs recorded
4. Check job state — nextRunAtMs has jumped to the next day

Expected Behavior

The job should fire at the scheduled cron time (e.g., 10:00 daily).

Actual Behavior

• The job never fires automatically
• nextRunAtMs keeps advancing without any actual run
• cron runs shows empty entries

Workaround

• Using openclaw cron run <jobId> --force from CLI works
• Converting to kind: "every" with everyMs and anchorMs works

Evidence

• Job with kind: "every" (Twitter Monitor, hourly) fires correctly and shows lastRunAtMs, lastStatus: "ok"
• Job with kind: "cron" (Daily Email Digest) never fires, no lastRunAtMs until manually forced

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.2.3-1
• OS: Linux (Ubuntu)
• Gateway running continuously (no sleep/restarts during test window)
• OPENCLAW_SKIP_CRON not set
• Timezone explicitly set in job config

Additional Context

This was discovered while trying to schedule a daily email digest at 10:00 AM. The job was updated at 09:32, should have fired at 10:00 (28 min later), but nextRunAtMs was set to the following day instead. Even after disable/re-enable cycle and setting schedule to 10:15 (7 min in future), the job did not fire and nextRunAtMs again jumped to the next day.