Reference Explainer

Cron Expressions

Cron schedules define recurring jobs with compact time fields.

What It Is

  • Standard cron commonly uses five fields: minute hour day month weekday.
  • Expressions like */15 define fixed intervals for a field.
  • System implementations differ on support for seconds and aliases.

Common Pitfalls

  • Assuming timezone behavior without explicit configuration.
  • Using unsupported cron syntax for a specific platform.
  • Overlapping schedules causing duplicate job execution.