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 generator (7-field syntax)
Build a 7-field Quartz cron expression (seconds, minutes, hours, dom, month, dow, year) with the ? rule and L, W, # operators — for Spring @Scheduled and standalone Quartz.
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.
Open the Cron Expression Builder →