Schedule Explainer
Humanize cron expressions and suggest systemd OnCalendar values.
Explaining cron and systemd schedules
Cron expressions are compact but easy to misread. A schedule that runs at minute zero every hour is not the same as one that runs once daily at midnight. Human-readable explanations catch off-by-one field mistakes before CronJobs or CI timers reach production.
Platforms differ: standard cron, Quartz, and cloud schedulers extend syntax with seconds fields or named months. Confirm which dialect your orchestrator expects before copying an expression from a blog post or Stack Overflow answer.
Systemd timers use OnCalendar syntax that does not map one-to-one to cron. Suggesting equivalent calendar strings helps when teams migrate from crontab entries to unit files on modern Linux deployments.
Document the intended timezone beside every schedule in your repository. UTC versus local time bugs appear every daylight-saving transition and are easier to prevent in review than to debug after missed jobs.
Reference Guide
Humanize cron expressions and map schedules to systemd OnCalendar values.
| Field | Common mistake |
|---|---|
| Minute vs hour | 0 * * * * is hourly, not daily |
| Day-of-week | Some platforms use 0 or 7 for Sunday |
| Timezone | Document UTC vs local beside every schedule |
Current mode
Operation: cron-humanize
- Uses standard 5-field cron syntax (minute hour day month weekday).
- Lists the next three scheduled run times.
All processing runs locally in your browser. Paste input, click Run, and copy the result.
Example Input
0 9 * * 1-5
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