Cron Job Expression Generator

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💡 The #1 production mistake with cron jobs is timezone confusion. Most Linux cron daemons run in UTC — always confirm your server timezone with: date && cat /etc/timezone

Quick Presets

Build Expression

Minute 0–59

Hour 0–23

Day of Month 1–31

Month 1–12

Day of Week 0–7 (0,7=Sun)

Platform & Timezone

Platform

Timezone note

Generated Expression

* * * * *

Every minute

Platform Code

Next 10 Run Times (approx.)

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What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a string of 5 space-separated fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) that defines when a scheduled task should run. For example, "0 9 * * 1" means "every Monday at 9:00 AM".

What do the 5 fields mean?

Field 1: Minute (0–59). Field 2: Hour (0–23). Field 3: Day of month (1–31). Field 4: Month (1–12). Field 5: Day of week (0–7, where both 0 and 7 = Sunday). An asterisk (*) means "every".

What does */5 mean in cron?

"*/5" means "every 5 units". So "*/5" in the minute field means "every 5 minutes". "*/2" in the hour field means "every 2 hours". This is called step notation.

Why do GitHub Actions cron expressions differ?

GitHub Actions uses the same 5-field syntax as standard Linux cron, but it always runs in UTC and has a minimum interval of about 5 minutes. The generated expression is identical — only the environment differs.

Does AWS EventBridge use the same syntax?

AWS CloudWatch Events / EventBridge uses a 6-field cron syntax with an additional Year field, and uses ? instead of * for "any". This tool generates the correct format for each platform.

What is the minimum cron interval?

Standard Linux cron supports 1-minute intervals. GitHub Actions has an effective minimum of ~5 minutes. AWS EventBridge supports 1-minute intervals. Shorter intervals require a different scheduling system.