Common cron schedules
Ready-to-paste cron expressions for the schedules people ask about most — plus a primer on what cron jobs are. Covering Linux crontab, Kubernetes CronJob, GitHub Actions and AWS EventBridge in one place.
What is a cron job?
A cron job is a scheduled command that runs at fixed times on Unix-like systems. The schedule is a one-line cron expression of five space-separated fields.
Cron expression for every 5 minutes
The cron expression `*/5 * * * *` runs every 5 minutes in Linux crontab, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions; `cron(*/5 * * * ? *)` in AWS EventBridge.
Cron expression for every 15 minutes
The cron expression `*/15 * * * *` runs every 15 minutes — at :00, :15, :30, :45 — across Linux, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions and AWS.
Cron expression for every 30 minutes
The cron expression `*/30 * * * *` runs every 30 minutes — at :00 and :30 of every hour. Same in Linux, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions; `cron(*/30 * * * ? *)` in AWS.
Cron expression for every hour
The cron expression `0 * * * *` runs once per hour on the hour. Same syntax in Linux, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions; `cron(0 * * * ? *)` in AWS EventBridge.
Cron expression for daily at midnight
The cron expression `0 0 * * *` runs once daily at midnight. Watch the timezone — Kubernetes < 1.25 and AWS EventBridge default to UTC, not local time.
Cron expression for every weekday
The cron expression `0 9 * * 1-5` runs at 9 AM Monday through Friday. AWS uses `cron(0 9 ? * MON-FRI *)` because day-of-week numbering differs.
Cron expression for the first of every month
The cron expression `0 0 1 * *` runs at midnight on the 1st of every month. AWS uses `cron(0 0 1 * ? *)`.
Cron expression for the last day of the month
AWS EventBridge supports `cron(0 0 L * ? *)`. Unix cron has no `L` — use `0 0 28-31 * *` with a `date -d tomorrow` test in the command.
Cron expression for every Sunday
The cron expression `0 0 * * 0` runs every Sunday at midnight in Unix cron. AWS uses `cron(0 0 ? * 1 *)` because Sunday is `1` in AWS, not `0`.
Cron expression for twice a day
The cron expression `0 6,18 * * *` runs twice daily — at 6 AM and 6 PM. The comma syntax lists multiple values for any field.
Cron expression for every 3 hours
The cron expression `0 */3 * * *` runs every 3 hours on the hour — 8 firings per day with no day-boundary gap. Linux/Kubernetes/GitHub Actions; `cron(0 */3 * * ? *)` in AWS.
Cron expression for every Monday
The cron expression `0 9 * * 1` runs every Monday at 9 AM. Monday is `1` in both Unix and AWS — one of the few days where the numbering aligns across all schedulers.
Quartz cron expression syntax
Quartz cron uses 7 fields (seconds, minutes, hours, dom, month, dow, year) and requires `?` in either dom or dow. Different from Unix cron and from AWS EventBridge.
Cron expression for every 30 seconds
Cron cannot run every 30 seconds — it has no seconds field, only minutes. Use `setInterval`, KEDA cron-trigger or a long-running scheduler instead.
Cron expression for every 2 hours
The cron expression `0 */2 * * *` runs every 2 hours on the hour — at 00:00, 02:00, 04:00 etc. Step syntax (`*/N`) works in any field.
Cron expression for every 4 hours
The cron expression `0 */4 * * *` runs every 4 hours on the hour — at 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00. Six runs per day across Linux, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions; `cron(0 */4 * * ? *)` in AWS.
Need something custom?
Build cron expressions for Unix, Kubernetes, AWS EventBridge and Quartz — with a human-readable description and the next 5 run times.
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