Background Service & Schedules

Apis AI can keep running in the system tray like Discord. This way scheduled workflows stay active even when the window is closed.

On This Page

Keep Running in the Background
Autostart
Autostart Troubleshooting
Notifications
Tray Menu

Keep Running in the Background (Tray)

You'll find the Keep running in the background option under Settings, then Appearance, then Background service. When it is active, closing the window does not quit the app – it keeps running as a tray resident, and workflow cron jobs continue to execute.

System Tray Not Available On Linux the background service requires tray support (StatusNotifierItem via D-Bus). Without it the app cannot stay resident in the tray; in that case Apis AI keeps the window open – also when it was started through autostart – so it never runs invisibly.

Autostart

With Start automatically at system login, Apis AI starts with the desktop. This ensures that scheduled workflows run reliably even after a restart.

Apis AI writes a standard XDG autostart entry to ~/.config/autostart/apis-ai.desktop. KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE and most other desktops evaluate it on login. The app is then started with --minimized, so it goes straight to the tray.

Installed package (deb/rpm): the entry points at the installed launcher, for example /opt/apis-ai/bin/apis-ai.
AppImage: the entry points at the .AppImage file itself, so it keeps working after a reboot. Keep the file in a permanent folder (for example ~/Applications) before enabling autostart.
Development run (./gradlew run): no entry is created, because there is no installed launcher.

Autostart Troubleshooting

If Apis AI does not come up after logging in, check the following:

Is the entry there? Look for ~/.config/autostart/apis-ai.desktop. If it is missing, toggle the switch off and on again and save the settings.
Does the path still exist? The Exec= line must point at a file that exists. After moving or reinstalling the app, toggle autostart off and on again so the entry is rewritten.
AppImage in a temp folder? Starting an AppImage from /tmp or from its internal mount (/tmp/.mount_*) is ignored on purpose, because that path disappears on reboot. Move the file to a permanent folder and enable autostart again.
Logs: the reason is logged by the Apis.Autostart logger in ~/.config/apis-ai/logs/.

Notifications

For scheduled workflows you control when you are notified:

Option	Behavior
Off	No notifications.
Success and errors	Notification for every completed and failed run.
Only on errors	Notification only when a run fails.

The icon in the system tray offers:

Open Apis AI – brings the window back.
Quit app – quits the app completely (including the background service).

Tip For scheduled workflows: enable the background service and autostart – then the schedules run without manual intervention.