Cron Scheduling Guide

Master cron expressions for Linux crontab, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, and CI pipelines.

Cron expressions define recurring job schedules using 5 fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. They power Linux crontab, Kubernetes CronJobs, AWS EventBridge, and GitHub Actions schedules.

Common cron patterns

  • 0 * * * * — every hour at minute 0
  • 0 9 * * 1-5 — 9 AM weekdays
  • */15 * * * * — every 15 minutes
  • 0 0 1 * * — first day of every month at midnight
  • 0 0 * * 0 — every Sunday at midnight
Parse cron expressions

Special characters

  • * — any value
  • */n — every n units
  • n-m — range from n to m
  • n,m — list of values n and m
Convert timezones