What cron formats does the builder support?

The builder supports standard 5-field cron expressions (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week) used by crontab, as well as 6-field expressions with seconds used by tools like Quartz and Spring.

Does it show the next run times?

Yes. The builder calculates and displays the next 5-10 scheduled execution times based on your cron expression, so you can verify the schedule before deploying.

Can I use it for Kubernetes CronJobs?

Yes. Kubernetes CronJobs use standard 5-field cron syntax. Build your expression here, then paste it into your CronJob spec.schedule field.

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Cron Expression Builder

Cron Expression Builder

Build, parse, and test cron expressions visually with next execution preview

Build Your Cron Expression

Minutes (0-59)

Hours (0-23)

Day of Month (1-31)

Month (1-12)

Day of Week

Parse Cron Expression

Enter Cron Expression

Format

Format Examples:
5-field: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week
6-field: second minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week

Systems using 5-field: Linux crontab, GitHub Actions
Systems using 6-field: AWS EventBridge, Jenkins, Kubernetes CronJob

Live Preview

* * * * *

Every minute

Next 10 Executions

Quick Start Presets

Platform-Specific Output

# Add this line to your crontab (crontab -e) * * * * * /path/to/your/command

apiVersion: batch/v1 kind: CronJob metadata: name: your-cronjob spec: schedule: “* * * * *” jobTemplate: spec: template: spec: containers: – name: your-container image: your-image command: – /bin/sh – -c – your-command restartPolicy: OnFailure

name: Scheduled Workflow on: schedule: – cron: ‘* * * * *’ workflow_dispatch: jobs: scheduled-job: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: – uses: actions/checkout@v4 – name: Run scheduled task run: echo “Your scheduled task here”

{ “Rules”: [ { “Name”: “YourScheduledRule”, “ScheduleExpression”: “cron(* * * * ? *)”, “State”: “ENABLED”, “Targets”: [ { “Id”: “1”, “Arn”: “arn:aws:lambda:region:account-id:function:your-function” } ] } ] }

pipeline { agent any triggers { cron(‘* * * * *’) } stages { stage(‘Scheduled Task’) { steps { echo ‘Your scheduled task here’ } } } }

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a cron expression?

A cron expression is a time-based job scheduler format used in Unix-like systems. It consists of 5 or 6 fields representing minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week, and optionally seconds. Each field can contain specific values, ranges, intervals, or wildcards to define when a job should run.

What’s the difference between 5-field and 6-field cron?

5-field cron (standard Unix crontab) uses minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. 6-field cron adds seconds as the first field, commonly used in systems like AWS EventBridge, Jenkins, and some job schedulers. The 6-field format provides more precise timing control.

How do I run a cron job every 5 minutes?

Use the expression */5 * * * * which means “every 5 minutes of every hour of every day”. The */5 syntax means “every 5th value” starting from 0.

What does the asterisk (*) mean in cron?

The asterisk (*) is a wildcard that matches any value for that field. For example, * * * * * means “every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every day of the week” – essentially every minute.

How do I schedule a cron job for weekdays only?

Use the day of week field with value 1-5 (Monday through Friday). For example, 0 9 * * 1-5 runs every weekday at 9:00 AM. You can also use MON-FRI in some systems that support named days.

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