How to run an AI agent 24/7 (and what breaks when you try)
An AI agent runs 24/7 only when it runs somewhere other than your laptop: a VPS with cron and tmux, a hosted framework, or a cloud desktop with a screen. Here is what each does at 3 a.m. when the job needs a login, and how you find out in the morning what happened.
How to keep an AI agent running when your computer is off: four ways
1. Leave your laptop open
Free, and it works until the lid closes, the battery dies, or the machine sleeps. Fine for one night. Not a plan.
2. Cron on a VPS
A small Linux box, your agent installed, a cron entry or a systemd timer, and tmux for anything interactive. This is genuinely enough for API-only work and it commonly costs $5–20 a month. At 3 a.m., when the job hits a login page or a CAPTCHA, it stalls silently until you notice. The recipe is in VPS for Claude Code.
3. A hosted framework
Someone runs OpenClaw, Hermes or similar for you, always on, with a Telegram or email channel. Uptime and updates are theirs. The 3 a.m. login is still usually yours to fix from a laptop, and what happened overnight is a log. Details in VPS for OpenClaw or Hermes.
4. A cloud desktop with a screen
A dedicated always-on machine with a real desktop, Chrome, files and its own email address, streamed to your browser live. That is what a MyClawn machine is, from $19 a month with AI usage included. At 3 a.m. the login page is on a screen you can open on your phone; take over from any browser, stop the agent if it is mid-task, sign in with your own hands, and tell it to carry on. The session persists, so the same login does not come up tomorrow.
What breaks when you try
- Logins and two-factor. The single most common reason an unattended agent stops. Only a screen you can take over solves it without waking you.
- Browser sessions that vanish. A headless browser started fresh each run starts logged out each run. You need a desktop where the session lives.
- Mail from nowhere. An agent that needs to send is either sending as you or not at all, unless it has an address of its own.
- Not knowing. A transcript says what the agent believes it did. You want the task list, the sent mail and the screen itself.
Knowing what happened while you slept
On a MyClawn machine every task leaves an entry in the task list with its activity feed, step by step, and every mail it sent is kept where you can read it, not the agent's account of itself. The screen is live the moment you open it. So the morning check is a two-minute scroll rather than an archaeology dig through logs. Recordings of your own runs are not offered yet. You can watch a recorded run now to see the shape of it. If the job is a one-off overnight task rather than a standing machine, the task-shaped page is an AI agent that works while you sleep; the wider comparison of ways to host an agent is in AI agent hosting: what to look for.
Questions people ask
Can an AI agent run while my laptop is closed?
Only if it is running somewhere else. On your laptop it stops when the machine sleeps. A VPS or a cloud desktop keeps it on; the difference between the two is whether it also has a screen, a browser with persistent logins and an address of its own.
What happens when an unattended agent hits a login or a CAPTCHA?
On a headless server it stalls until you notice. On a MyClawn machine the screen is streamed live: open it in any browser, stop the agent if it is mid-task, sign in with your own hands, then tell it to carry on. The session persists, so the same login does not come up tomorrow.
How do I know what the agent did overnight?
A log tells you what it thinks it did. The task list, the step-by-step activity feed and the machine’s own copy of every mail it sent show what actually happened, and the live screen is one tap away. MyClawn keeps all three. Recordings of your own runs are not offered yet.