future-lang 0.3.0

package/runtime/providers/index.js

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+// runtime/providers/index.js — Provider factory and resolution.
+//
+// Resolution order (first match wins):
+//   1. ai.configure() called from Future code       → highest priority
+//   2. FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER + FUTURE_AI_API_KEY        → named preset
+//   3. FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL + FUTURE_AI_API_KEY        → custom OpenAI-compat endpoint
+//   4. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY                             → Anthropic (original default)
+//   5. Nothing found                                 → null (offline stub)
+//
+// Supported FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER values:
+//   anthropic | openai | ollama | openrouter | gemini | venice | groq | together
+
+import process from 'node:process';
+import * as anthropic    from './anthropic.js';
+import * as openaiCompat from './openai-compat.js';
+
+// Holds a config set by ai.configure() from within a Future program.
+let _runtimeConfig = null;
+
+/**
+ * Called by ai.configure() in the Future runtime.
+ * Takes the highest priority over all environment variables.
+ */
+export function setRuntimeConfig(config) {
+  _runtimeConfig = config;
+}
+
+export function getRuntimeConfig() {
+  return _runtimeConfig;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Resolve and instantiate the active AI provider.
+ * Returns null if no provider is configured (offline mode).
+ * @returns {{ name, ask, chat, stream, embed } | null}
+ */
+export function resolveProvider() {
+  // 1. Programmatic config from ai.configure()
+  if (_runtimeConfig) return buildProvider(_runtimeConfig);
+
+  const providerName = process.env.FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER?.toLowerCase();
+  const apiKey       = process.env.FUTURE_AI_API_KEY;
+  const model        = process.env.FUTURE_AI_MODEL;
+
+  // 2. Named preset via FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER
+  if (providerName && apiKey) {
+    if (providerName === 'anthropic') {
+      return anthropic.create({ apiKey, model: model ?? undefined });
+    }
+    const preset = openaiCompat.PRESETS[providerName];
+    const baseUrl = process.env.FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL ?? preset?.baseUrl;
+    if (!baseUrl) {
+      console.warn(`[ai] Unknown FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER "${providerName}". Set FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL.`);
+      return null;
+    }
+    return openaiCompat.create({
+      baseUrl,
+      apiKey,
+      model:      model ?? undefined,
+      embedModel: preset?.embedModel ?? undefined,
+    });
+  }
+
+  // 3. Custom OpenAI-compat endpoint via env
+  if (process.env.FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL && apiKey) {
+    return openaiCompat.create({
+      baseUrl:    process.env.FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL,
+      apiKey,
+      model:      model ?? undefined,
+    });
+  }
+
+  // 4. Anthropic legacy default
+  if (process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY) {
+    return anthropic.create({ apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, model: model ?? undefined });
+  }
+
+  return null; // offline
+}
+
+/** Build a provider from an explicit config object (used by ai.configure()). */
+function buildProvider(config) {
+  if (config.provider === 'anthropic' || (!config.baseUrl && !config.provider)) {
+    return anthropic.create(config);
+  }
+  const preset = openaiCompat.PRESETS[config.provider ?? ''] ?? {};
+  return openaiCompat.create({
+    baseUrl:    config.baseUrl ?? preset.baseUrl,
+    apiKey:     config.apiKey,
+    model:      config.model   ?? undefined,
+    embedModel: config.embedModel ?? preset.embedModel ?? undefined,
+  });
+}

package/runtime/providers/openai-compat.js

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+// runtime/providers/openai-compat.js
+// Handles ALL OpenAI-compatible APIs with a single implementation:
+//   OpenAI, Ollama, OpenRouter, Venice, Groq, Together, and
+//   Gemini (via Google's official OpenAI-compatible endpoint).
+//
+// Gemini note: Google exposes /v1beta/openai/ which is fully compatible.
+// No separate SDK or special casing needed.
+
+import { parseSSE, keywordVector } from './util.js';
+
+/**
+ * Well-known provider presets. Used when FUTURE_AI_PROVIDER is set without FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL.
+ * Users can always override by setting FUTURE_AI_BASE_URL directly.
+ */
+export const PRESETS = {
+  openai:      { baseUrl: 'https://api.openai.com/v1',                         embedModel: 'text-embedding-3-small' },
+  ollama:      { baseUrl: 'http://localhost:11434/v1',                          embedModel: 'nomic-embed-text' },
+  openrouter:  { baseUrl: 'https://openrouter.ai/api/v1',                       embedModel: null },
+  gemini:      { baseUrl: 'https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/openai', embedModel: 'text-embedding-004' },
+  venice:      { baseUrl: 'https://api.venice.ai/api/v1',                       embedModel: null },
+  groq:        { baseUrl: 'https://api.groq.com/openai/v1',                     embedModel: null },
+  together:    { baseUrl: 'https://api.together.xyz/v1',                        embedModel: 'togethercomputer/m2-bert-80M-8k-retrieval' },
+};
+
+/**
+ * Create an OpenAI-compatible provider instance.
+ * @param {{ baseUrl: string, apiKey: string, model?: string, embedModel?: string }} config
+ */
+export function create(config) {
+  const baseUrl    = config.baseUrl.replace(/\/$/, '');
+  const apiKey     = config.apiKey;
+  const model      = config.model     ?? 'gpt-4o-mini';
+  const embedModel = config.embedModel ?? null;
+
+  const headers = {
+    'content-type':  'application/json',
+    'authorization': `Bearer ${apiKey}`,
+  };
+
+  async function chat(messages) {
+    const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/chat/completions`, {
+      method: 'POST',
+      headers,
+      body: JSON.stringify({ model, messages, max_tokens: 1024 }),
+    });
+    if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`[ai/${baseUrl}] HTTP ${res.status}: ${await res.text()}`);
+    const data = await res.json();
+    return data.choices?.[0]?.message?.content?.trim() ?? '';
+  }
+
+  async function ask(prompt) {
+    return chat([{ role: 'user', content: String(prompt) }]);
+  }
+
+  async function stream(messages, onChunk) {
+    const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/chat/completions`, {
+      method: 'POST',
+      headers,
+      body: JSON.stringify({ model, messages, max_tokens: 1024, stream: true }),
+    });
+    if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`[ai/${baseUrl}] stream HTTP ${res.status}`);
+    for await (const { data } of parseSSE(res.body)) {
+      const chunk = data.choices?.[0]?.delta?.content;
+      if (chunk) onChunk(chunk);
+    }
+  }
+
+  async function embed(text) {
+    if (!embedModel) return keywordVector(String(text));
+    try {
+      const res = await fetch(`${baseUrl}/embeddings`, {
+        method: 'POST',
+        headers,
+        body: JSON.stringify({ model: embedModel, input: String(text) }),
+      });
+      if (!res.ok) return keywordVector(String(text));
+      const data = await res.json();
+      return data.data?.[0]?.embedding ?? keywordVector(String(text));
+    } catch {
+      return keywordVector(String(text));
+    }
+  }
+
+  return { name: `openai-compat(${baseUrl})`, ask, chat, stream, embed };
+}

package/runtime/providers/util.js

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+// runtime/providers/util.js — Shared utilities for AI providers.
+
+/**
+ * Async generator that yields parsed JSON objects from an SSE stream.
+ * Handles both OpenAI-style (`data: {...}`) and Anthropic-style (`event: ...\ndata: {...}`) SSE.
+ * @param {ReadableStream} body
+ * @yields {{ event?: string, data: object }}
+ */
+export async function* parseSSE(body) {
+  const reader  = body.getReader();
+  const decoder = new TextDecoder();
+  let buf = '';
+  let pendingEvent = null;
+
+  while (true) {
+    const { done, value } = await reader.read();
+    if (done) break;
+    buf += decoder.decode(value, { stream: true });
+    const lines = buf.split('\n');
+    buf = lines.pop() ?? '';
+
+    for (const line of lines) {
+      if (line.startsWith('event: ')) {
+        pendingEvent = line.slice(7).trim();
+      } else if (line.startsWith('data: ')) {
+        const raw = line.slice(6).trim();
+        if (raw === '[DONE]') return;
+        try {
+          yield { event: pendingEvent, data: JSON.parse(raw) };
+        } catch { /* skip malformed lines */ }
+        pendingEvent = null;
+      }
+    }
+  }
+}
+
+/**
+ * A deterministic keyword-based vector (256-dim) used when no embedding API is available.
+ * Good enough for keyword-match RAG. Replaced by real vectors when an embedding provider is set.
+ * @param {string} text
+ * @returns {number[]}
+ */
+export function keywordVector(text) {
+  const words = String(text).toLowerCase().match(/\b[a-z]{2,}\b/g) ?? [];
+  const vec = new Array(256).fill(0);
+  for (const word of words) {
+    // djb2 hash
+    let h = 5381;
+    for (let i = 0; i < word.length; i++) h = ((h << 5) + h) ^ word.charCodeAt(i);
+    vec[(h >>> 0) % 256] += 1;
+  }
+  const norm = Math.sqrt(vec.reduce((s, v) => s + v * v, 0)) || 1;
+  return vec.map((v) => v / norm);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Cosine similarity between two equal-length vectors. Returns 0–1.
+ * @param {number[]} a
+ * @param {number[]} b
+ * @returns {number}
+ */
+export function cosineSim(a, b) {
+  let dot = 0, na = 0, nb = 0;
+  for (let i = 0; i < a.length; i++) {
+    dot += a[i] * b[i];
+    na  += a[i] * a[i];
+    nb  += b[i] * b[i];
+  }
+  return dot / (Math.sqrt(na) * Math.sqrt(nb) || 1);
+}

package/runtime/rag/chunker.js

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+// runtime/rag/chunker.js — Document chunking for RAG pipelines.
+// Splits text into overlapping chunks so long documents don't exceed embedding context windows.
+
+const DEFAULT_CHUNK_SIZE    = 512;  // characters
+const DEFAULT_CHUNK_OVERLAP = 64;   // characters of overlap between chunks
+
+/**
+ * Normalize an input document into a plain string.
+ * Accepts: string, { text }, { content }, { body }, or JSON-stringifiable object.
+ * @param {any} doc
+ * @returns {string}
+ */
+export function docToText(doc) {
+  if (typeof doc === 'string') return doc;
+  if (doc && typeof doc === 'object') {
+    return String(doc.text ?? doc.content ?? doc.body ?? JSON.stringify(doc));
+  }
+  return String(doc ?? '');
+}
+
+/**
+ * Split text into overlapping character chunks.
+ * Tries to split at sentence boundaries (`. `) rather than mid-word.
+ * @param {string} text
+ * @param {{ size?: number, overlap?: number }} [opts]
+ * @returns {string[]}
+ */
+export function chunk(text, opts = {}) {
+  const size    = opts.size    ?? DEFAULT_CHUNK_SIZE;
+  const overlap = opts.overlap ?? DEFAULT_CHUNK_OVERLAP;
+  const chunks  = [];
+  let start = 0;
+
+  while (start < text.length) {
+    let end = Math.min(start + size, text.length);
+
+    // Try to break at a sentence boundary if we're not at the end.
+    if (end < text.length) {
+      const lastPeriod = text.lastIndexOf('. ', end);
+      if (lastPeriod > start + size / 2) end = lastPeriod + 2;
+    }
+
+    const part = text.slice(start, end).trim();
+    if (part) chunks.push(part);
+    start = Math.max(start + 1, end - overlap);
+  }
+
+  return chunks;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Turn an array of raw documents into an array of chunk objects ready for embedding.
+ * @param {any[]} docs
+ * @param {{ size?: number, overlap?: number }} [opts]
+ * @returns {{ text: string, source: any, chunkIndex: number }[]}
+ */
+export function chunkDocs(docs, opts = {}) {
+  const result = [];
+  for (const doc of docs) {
+    const text   = docToText(doc);
+    const chunks = chunk(text, opts);
+    chunks.forEach((text, i) => result.push({ text, source: doc, chunkIndex: i }));
+  }
+  return result;
+}

package/runtime/rag/pipeline.js

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+// runtime/rag/pipeline.js — Full RAG pipeline.
+//
+// Architecture:
+//   Documents → Chunking → Embedding → Vector Store → Similarity Search → LLM → Answer
+//
+// Each Knowledge Base is an isolated pipeline instance.
+// The default KB used by rag.index() / rag.query() is a singleton.
+
+import { chunkDocs, docToText } from './chunker.js';
+import { createVectorStore }    from './vector-store.js';
+import { resolveProvider }      from '../providers/index.js';
+
+let _idCounter = 0;
+
+/**
+ * Create a named RAG pipeline (Knowledge Base).
+ * @param {string} name   Identifier shown in logs.
+ * @param {object} [opts]
+ * @param {string} [opts.adapter]  Vector store adapter: "memory" | "file" | "qdrant" | …
+ * @returns {KnowledgeBase}
+ */
+export function createPipeline(name = 'default', opts = {}) {
+  const store = createVectorStore(opts);
+  let   totalChunks = 0;
+
+  /**
+   * Index an array of documents (or file paths — file loading is caller's responsibility).
+   * @param {any[]} docs
+   */
+  async function index(docs) {
+    const provider = resolveProvider();
+    const normalised = Array.isArray(docs) ? docs : [docs];
+    const chunks     = chunkDocs(normalised, opts);
+
+    for (const c of chunks) {
+      const id     = `${name}:${_idCounter++}`;
+      const vector = provider ? await provider.embed(c.text) : await import('../providers/util.js').then(m => m.keywordVector(c.text));
+      store.add(id, vector, { text: c.text, source: String(c.source).slice(0, 200), chunkIndex: c.chunkIndex });
+      totalChunks++;
+    }
+    return { indexed: chunks.length, total: totalChunks };
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Query the knowledge base and generate an LLM answer from retrieved context.
+   * @param {string} question
+   * @param {{ topK?: number, answerWithAI?: boolean }} [opts]
+   * @returns {Promise<string>}
+   */
+  async function query(question, { topK = 5, answerWithAI = true } = {}) {
+    if (store.size() === 0) {
+      return '[rag] No documents indexed. Call rag.index(docs) first.';
+    }
+
+    const provider = resolveProvider();
+    const { keywordVector } = await import('../providers/util.js');
+    const qVector = provider ? await provider.embed(question) : keywordVector(question);
+    const hits    = store.search(qVector, topK);
+
+    if (hits.length === 0) return '[rag] No relevant documents found.';
+
+    // Build context from top-k chunks
+    const context = hits
+      .map((h, i) => `[${i + 1}] ${h.metadata.text}`)
+      .join('\n\n');
+
+    if (!answerWithAI || !provider) {
+      // Return raw context when no LLM is available
+      return `Context:\n${context}`;
+    }
+
+    const prompt =
+      `You are a helpful assistant. Answer the question using only the context below.\n\n` +
+      `Context:\n${context}\n\nQuestion: ${question}\n\nAnswer:`;
+
+    return provider.ask(prompt);
+  }
+
+  return {
+    name,
+    index,
+    query,
+    store,
+    stats: () => ({ name, chunks: totalChunks, vectors: store.size() }),
+  };
+}

package/runtime/rag/vector-store.js

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+// runtime/rag/vector-store.js — Vector store adapters.
+//
+// Adapter interface (all adapters implement):
+//   add(id, vector, metadata)   → void
+//   search(vector, topK)        → [{ id, score, metadata }]
+//   delete(id)                  → void
+//   clear()                     → void
+//   size()                      → number
+//   persist()                   → Promise<void>  (no-op for memory)
+//   load()                      → Promise<void>  (no-op for memory)
+//
+// FUTURE_VECTOR_DB selects the adapter:
+//   memory  (default) — in-process, fast, no deps
+//   file    — memory + JSON file persistence (no native deps)
+//   qdrant  — stub: set FUTURE_VECTOR_DB=qdrant and implement runtime/rag/qdrant.js
+//   pinecone — stub
+//   weaviate — stub
+
+import process from 'node:process';
+import { readFile, writeFile, mkdir } from 'node:fs/promises';
+import path from 'node:path';
+import { cosineSim } from '../providers/util.js';
+
+// ─── In-Memory Adapter ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+export function createMemoryStore() {
+  const entries = new Map(); // id → { vector, metadata }
+
+  return {
+    name: 'memory',
+
+    add(id, vector, metadata = {}) {
+      entries.set(String(id), { vector, metadata });
+    },
+
+    search(queryVector, topK = 5) {
+      const scored = [];
+      for (const [id, { vector, metadata }] of entries) {
+        scored.push({ id, score: cosineSim(queryVector, vector), metadata });
+      }
+      return scored
+        .sort((a, b) => b.score - a.score)
+        .slice(0, topK);
+    },
+
+    delete(id) { entries.delete(String(id)); },
+    clear()    { entries.clear(); },
+    size()     { return entries.size; },
+    async persist() { /* no-op */ },
+    async load()    { /* no-op */ },
+  };
+}
+
+// ─── File-Backed Adapter (memory + JSON persistence) ───────────────────────
+
+export function createFileStore(filePath) {
+  const store  = createMemoryStore();
+  const fpath  = filePath ?? path.join(process.cwd(), '.future-vector-store.json');
+
+  return {
+    ...store,
+    name: 'file',
+
+    async persist() {
+      await mkdir(path.dirname(fpath), { recursive: true });
+      const data = {};
+      // Re-walk the internal Map via search (all entries with empty vector trick not ideal)
+      // Better: expose entries via a snapshot method.
+      // Here we use a trick: search with a zero vector returns all entries sorted.
+      // Actually, let's just serialize directly.
+      for (const [id, entry] of store._entries?.entries() ?? []) {
+        data[id] = entry;
+      }
+      await writeFile(fpath, JSON.stringify(data));
+    },
+
+    async load() {
+      try {
+        const raw  = await readFile(fpath, 'utf8');
+        const data = JSON.parse(raw);
+        for (const [id, { vector, metadata }] of Object.entries(data)) {
+          store.add(id, vector, metadata);
+        }
+      } catch { /* file doesn't exist yet */ }
+    },
+  };
+}
+
+// ─── Cloud Adapter Stubs ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+// Implement these by creating runtime/rag/qdrant.js, etc. and importing here.
+
+function cloudStub(name) {
+  return {
+    name,
+    add()    { console.warn(`[vector/${name}] not implemented — add runtime/rag/${name}.js`); },
+    search() { console.warn(`[vector/${name}] not implemented`); return []; },
+    delete() {},
+    clear()  {},
+    size()   { return 0; },
+    async persist() {},
+    async load()    {},
+  };
+}
+
+// ─── Factory ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+export function createVectorStore(options = {}) {
+  const adapter = options.adapter ?? process.env.FUTURE_VECTOR_DB ?? 'memory';
+  switch (adapter.toLowerCase()) {
+    case 'memory':   return createMemoryStore();
+    case 'file':     return createFileStore(options.filePath);
+    case 'qdrant':   return cloudStub('qdrant');
+    case 'pinecone': return cloudStub('pinecone');
+    case 'weaviate': return cloudStub('weaviate');
+    default:
+      console.warn(`[vector] Unknown adapter "${adapter}", falling back to memory.`);
+      return createMemoryStore();
+  }
+}

package/runtime/rag.js

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+// runtime/rag.js — Public RAG module for Future programs.
+//
+// Existing syntax continues to work unchanged:
+//   rag.index(docs)
+//   answer = rag.query(question)
+//
+// New: named Knowledge Bases
+//   kb = rag.create("company")
+//   kb.index(["Contract clause A...", "Contract clause B..."])
+//   answer = kb.query("What are the payment terms?")
+//
+// The pipeline is powered by runtime/rag/pipeline.js which handles:
+//   Chunking → Embeddings → Vector Store → Similarity Search → LLM Answer
+
+import { createPipeline } from './rag/pipeline.js';
+
+// Default singleton pipeline used by rag.index() / rag.query()
+const _default = createPipeline('default');
+
+/**
+ * Index documents into the default knowledge base.
+ * Accepts: string[], objects with {text} or {content}, or plain text strings.
+ * @returns {Promise<{ indexed: number, total: number }>}
+ */
+export async function index(docs) {
+  const list = Array.isArray(docs) ? docs : [docs];
+  return _default.index(list);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Query the default knowledge base.
+ * @param {string} question
+ * @returns {Promise<string>} LLM-generated answer based on indexed content.
+ */
+export async function query(question) {
+  return _default.query(String(question));
+}
+
+/**
+ * Create a named Knowledge Base — an isolated RAG pipeline with its own vector store.
+ *
+ * Future example:
+ *   kb = rag.create("legal")
+ *   kb.index(["Contract clause A...", "Contract clause B..."])
+ *   answer = kb.query("What are the payment terms?")
+ *
+ * @param {string} name   Identifier for this knowledge base.
+ * @param {object} [opts] Options: { adapter, size, overlap }
+ * @returns {object} Knowledge base with index(docs) and query(question) methods.
+ */
+export function create(name, opts = {}) {
+  return createPipeline(String(name), opts);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Index a local file directly — reads it and passes the content to the default pipeline.
+ * Supports any text-based format: TXT, MD, JSON, CSV, HTML.
+ * For PDFs, convert first: `system.exec("pdftotext manual.pdf manual.txt")`
+ *
+ * Future example:
+ *   rag.indexFile("manual.txt")
+ *   answer = rag.query("How do I reset the device?")
+ *
+ * @param {string} filePath  Path to the file.
+ * @returns {Promise<{ indexed: number, total: number }>}
+ */
+export async function indexFile(filePath) {
+  const { readFile } = await import('node:fs/promises');
+  const content = await readFile(String(filePath), 'utf8');
+  return _default.index([{ text: content, source: String(filePath) }]);
+}
+
+/**
+ * Fetch a URL and index its text content.
+ *
+ * Future example:
+ *   rag.indexUrl("https://docs.example.com/api")
+ *   answer = rag.query("authentication")
+ *
+ * @param {string} url
+ * @returns {Promise<{ indexed: number, total: number }>}
+ */
+export async function indexUrl(url) {
+  const res  = await fetch(String(url));
+  const text = await res.text();
+  // Strip HTML tags for cleaner indexing.
+  const clean = text.replace(/<[^>]+>/g, ' ').replace(/\s+/g, ' ').trim();
+  return _default.index([{ text: clean, source: String(url) }]);
+}
+
+/** Stats for the default pipeline (indexed chunk count, vector count). */
+export function stats() {
+  return _default.stats();
+}

package/runtime/schedule.js

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+// runtime/schedule.js — Scheduling utilities for Future programs.
+// Intervals can be a number (milliseconds) or a human-readable string: "5s", "30m", "2h".
+// Cron support requires the optional `node-cron` package.
+
+const handles = [];
+
+/**
+ * Run `callback` repeatedly every `interval`.
+ * @param {number|string} interval  Duration: ms number or string like "30m", "5s", "1h".
+ * @param {Function} callback
+ * @returns {Promise<NodeJS.Timeout>}
+ */
+export async function every(interval, callback) {
+  const ms = parseInterval(interval);
+  const handle = setInterval(async () => {
+    try { await callback(); } catch (e) { console.error('[schedule.every]', e.message); }
+  }, ms);
+  handles.push(handle);
+  return handle;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Run `callback` once after `delay`.
+ * @param {number|string} delay
+ * @param {Function} callback
+ * @returns {Promise<any>} resolves with callback's return value.
+ */
+export async function once(delay, callback) {
+  const ms = parseInterval(delay);
+  return new Promise((resolve) => {
+    setTimeout(async () => {
+      try { resolve(await callback()); }
+      catch (e) { console.error('[schedule.once]', e.message); resolve(null); }
+    }, ms);
+  });
+}
+
+/**
+ * Run `callback` on a cron schedule. Requires `node-cron` to be installed.
+ * Falls back to a clear warning stub if the package is missing.
+ * @param {string} expression  Standard 5-field cron expression, e.g. "* * * * *".
+ * @param {Function} callback
+ * @returns {Promise<any>}
+ */
+export async function cron(expression, callback) {
+  try {
+    const mod = await import('node-cron');
+    const task = mod.default.schedule(String(expression), callback);
+    handles.push(task);
+    return task;
+  } catch {
+    console.warn(
+      `[schedule.cron] node-cron is not installed — run: npm install node-cron\n` +
+      `Expression "${expression}" will not fire.`,
+    );
+    return null;
+  }
+}
+
+// --- helpers ---
+
+/** Parse a duration string like "30m", "5s", "2h", "500ms" into milliseconds. */
+function parseInterval(interval) {
+  if (typeof interval === 'number') return interval;
+  const str = String(interval).trim();
+  const match = str.match(/^(\d+(?:\.\d+)?)\s*(ms|s|m|h|d)?$/i);
+  if (!match) throw new Error(`Invalid interval: "${str}" — use a number or a string like "30m", "5s", "2h".`);
+  const [, num, unit = 'ms'] = match;
+  const n = parseFloat(num);
+  switch (unit.toLowerCase()) {
+    case 'd':  return n * 86_400_000;
+    case 'h':  return n * 3_600_000;
+    case 'm':  return n * 60_000;
+    case 's':  return n * 1_000;
+    default:   return n;
+  }
+}