Cron Syntax Cheat Sheet — Schedule Expressions & Examples

Master crontab expression syntax. Field definitions, special operators (*, /, -, ,), and common schedule presets for Linux and CI/CD.

The 5 Standard Cron Fields

* * * * *

Minute (0-59) | Hour (0-23) | Day of Month (1-31) | Month (1-12) | Day of Week (0-6, Sun=0)

*

Asterisk: Matches any/every value for that field

,

Comma: Value list separator (e.g. 1,15,30 matches minutes 1, 15, and 30)

-

Hyphen: Defines a continuous range of values (e.g. 1-5 matches Mon-Fri)

/

Slash: Specifies step values (e.g. */15 in minute field runs every 15 minutes)

* * * * *

Run every single minute

*/5 * * * *

Run every 5 minutes

0 * * * *

Run at the start of every hour (minute 0)

0 0 * * *

Run daily at midnight (00:00 UTC)

0 2 * * *

Run every night at 2:00 AM (ideal for database backups)

0 9 * * 1-5

Run at 9:00 AM every weekday (Monday through Friday)

0 0 1 * *

Run on the 1st of every month at midnight