Cron cheatsheet
The whole syntax on one page. Standard 5-field cron, plus the 6-field seconds variant.
┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
│ ┌─────────── hour (0 - 23)
│ │ ┌───────── day of month (1 - 31)
│ │ │ ┌─────── month (1 - 12 | JAN-DEC)
│ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week (0 - 6 | SUN-SAT)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * * command to runFields
Field
Range
Allowed
Minute
0 – 59
* , - /
Hour
0 – 23
* , - /
Day of month
1 – 31
* , - / ? L W
Month
1 – 12
* , - / JAN-DEC
Day of week
0 – 6
* , - / ? L # SUN-SAT
Second (6-field)
0 – 59
* , - /
Special characters
*
Any value
Match every value in the field.
,
List
Separate individual values — 1,15,30.
-
Range
An inclusive span — 9-17 means 9 through 17.
/
Step
Every nth value — */5 or 0-30/10.
?
No value
Quartz-style "no specific value" for day-of-month/week.
L
Last
Last day of month (L) or last given weekday (5L). Non-standard.
W
Weekday
Nearest weekday to a date — 15W. Not in vixie-cron.
#
Nth weekday
The nth weekday of the month — 5#3 is the 3rd Friday.
Shortcuts
@yearly0 0 1 1 *
Once a year, midnight Jan 1 (= @annually).
@monthly0 0 1 * *
Midnight on the 1st of every month.
@weekly0 0 * * 0
Midnight every Sunday.
@daily0 0 * * *
Every day at midnight (= @midnight).
@hourly0 * * * *
The top of every hour.
@reboot—
Once at startup, not on a clock. Non-portable.
Common patterns
*/15 * * * *
Every 15 minutes
0 * * * *
Hourly, on the hour
0 9 * * 1-5
9 AM on weekdays
0 0 * * 0
Sundays at midnight
30 2 1 * *
2:30 AM on the 1st
0 22 * * 1-5
10 PM Mon–Fri
0 0 1 1 *
New Year, midnight
15 10 * * 6
10:15 AM Saturdays
Dialect support
Which schedulers accept the non-standard tokens. cronhelp.me flags these with the unsupported-token and nonportable-shortcut checks.
Token
Vixie cron
Quartz
AWS EventBridge
GitHub Actions
Seconds (6-field)
No
Yes
No
No
? (no value)
No
Yes
Yes
No
L (last)
No
Yes
Yes
No
W (weekday)
No
Yes
Yes
No
# (nth weekday)
No
Yes
Yes
No
@reboot
Yes
No
No
No
@daily / @hourly
Yes
No
No
No