Cron Expression Builder & Explainer

Five fields, separated by spaces, read left to right from smallest unit to largest. A job runs when the current time matches every field (with one exception for the two day fields, below).

Linux cron (Vixie cron and cronie) also accepts shortcuts: @hourly, @daily (or @midnight), @weekly, @monthly, @yearly (or @annually) and @reboot. GitHub Actions doesn't support them, so the builder always shows the five-field form too.

L, W, # and ? come from Quartz and AWS. They don't work in standard cron, GitHub Actions, Vercel or Kubernetes.

This is the rule that surprises everyone. When both day-of-month and day-of-week are set (neither starts with *), cron runs when either one matches, not when both do.

So 0 0 13 * 5 doesn't mean “Friday the 13th”. It runs on the 13th of every month and on every Friday. If either field starts with * (even */2), the normal “both must match” logic applies. That is how Vixie cron behaves, and the next-run list above follows it exactly.

To run on Friday the 13th only, schedule every Friday and exit early in the job unless the date is the 13th. AWS EventBridge avoids the ambiguity by forcing ? into one of the two fields.

A cron expression has no time zone of its own; the scheduler supplies one. Linux cron uses the server's zone. GitHub Actions defaults to UTC but accepts an optional timezone. Vercel is always UTC. EventBridge rules are UTC, while EventBridge Scheduler takes a zone. Kubernetes uses the controller's zone unless you set spec.timeZone.

Daylight saving creates two edge cases. When clocks jump forward, a time like 02:30 doesn't exist, and this tool shows that run shifted later with a DST sticker, as Vixie cron and GitHub do. When clocks fall back, 01:30 happens twice, and the tool shows a single run at the first one. Different schedulers resolve these cases differently, so avoid scheduling important jobs between 01:00 and 03:00 local time.

• Every Minute* * * * *
• Every 2 Minutes*/2 * * * *
• Every 5 Minutes*/5 * * * *
• Every 10 Minutes*/10 * * * *
• Every 15 Minutes*/15 * * * *
• Every 30 Minutes*/30 * * * *
• Every Hour0 * * * *
• Every 2 Hours0 */2 * * *
• Every 3 Hours0 */3 * * *
• Every 6 Hours0 */6 * * *
• Every 12 Hours0 */12 * * *
• Twice a Day0 9,21 * * *
• Every Day at Midnight0 0 * * *
• Every Day at 9am0 9 * * *
• Every Day at Noon0 12 * * *
• Every Weekday0 0 * * 1-5
• Every Weekday at 9am0 9 * * 1-5
• Every Weekend0 0 * * 6,0
• Every Monday0 0 * * 1
• Every Friday at 5pm0 17 * * 5
• Every Sunday at Midnight0 0 * * 0
• Every Week0 0 * * 0
• Every 15th of the Month0 0 15 * *
• First Day of the Month0 0 1 * *
• Last Day of the Month0 0 28-31 * *
• Every Month0 0 1 * *
• Every Quarter0 0 1 1,4,7,10 *
• Every Year0 0 1 1 *
• Every Hour During Business Hours0 9-17 * * 1-5
• Every 30 Minutes During Business Hours*/30 9-17 * * 1-5

Platform rules were checked against each platform's documentation on 7 November 2026.