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Cron schedule

Cron every weekday at 9 AM

The cron expression for every weekday at 9 AM is 0 9 * * 1-5: 09:00 Monday through Friday, five runs a week. It’s the standard schedule for stand-up reminders and morning reports.

Every weekday at 9 AM
Expression0 9 * * 1-5
Runs261 times in 2027
systemd OnCalendarMon..Fri *-*-* 09:00:00

How it works

Three fields carry the meaning: minute 0, hour 9, day of week 1-5. Day of month and month stay *. GitHub’s own documentation uses a close cousin, 30 5 * * 1-5 with timezone: "America/New_York", as its time-zone example.

A 9 AM job is only useful at the recipient’s 9 AM. On UTC-only platforms, 9 AM in São Paulo is 0 12 * * 1-5; 9 AM in New York is 0 13 * * 1-5 in summer and 0 14 * * 1-5 in winter. Near midnight UTC the weekday can shift too: 9 AM Monday in Sydney is Sunday evening UTC.

On Kubernetes set spec.timeZone, on GitHub add timezone, on cronie add CRON_TZ, and the expression stays 0 9 * * 1-5 everywhere.

Field-by-field breakdown
FieldValueMeaning
Minute0minute 0 (on the hour)
Hour9hour 9 (9 AM)
Day of month*every day of the month
Month*every month
Day of week1-5Monday to Friday

Next runs

Scheduler clock

As on GitHub Actions without timezone, Vercel, Cloudflare and Kubernetes with timeZone "Etc/UTC".

Next run times, computed in your browser from the current time
RunYour timeUTC
1Calculating… 
2  
3  
4  
5  

Ready-to-paste versions

The same schedule for each scheduler, with what differs on each one.

crontab (Linux, macOS, BSD)

crontab -e
# m h dom mon dow  command
0 9 * * 1-5 /usr/local/bin/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1
  • cron uses the server’s time zone. On cronie (Fedora, RHEL), a CRON_TZ=Europe/London line above the entry changes the zone for the entries below it.

GitHub Actions

.github/workflows/scheduled.yml
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 9 * * 1-5'
      # timezone: 'America/New_York'  # optional; UTC when omitted
  workflow_dispatch: {}
  • Runs in UTC unless you set timezone, and only on the default branch. GitHub’s docs warn that scheduled runs can be delayed at busy times and that schedules in public repositories are disabled after 60 days without activity.
  • The start of every hour is GitHub’s busiest slot. If the exact minute doesn’t matter, move the 0 to something like 17 to get picked up sooner.
  • With a timezone that observes DST, a time skipped by the spring-forward change advances to the next valid time (the docs’ example: 2:30 AM becomes 3:00 AM).

Kubernetes CronJob

cronjob.yaml
apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: scheduled-job
spec:
  schedule: "0 9 * * 1-5"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: busybox:1.36
              command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "date; echo running"]
  • spec.timeZone is stable since Kubernetes 1.27; without it, the kube-controller-manager’s zone applies. concurrencyPolicy: Forbid skips a run while the previous Job is still active.

Vercel Cron Jobs

vercel.json
{
  "crons": [
    { "path": "/api/cron", "schedule": "0 9 * * 1-5" }
  ]
}
  • Vercel always uses UTC, doesn’t accept names like MON or JAN, and won’t let you set both day of month and day of week.
  • This fits the Hobby plan, but Hobby precision is per hour: the invocation can land anywhere within the scheduled hour.

Cloudflare Workers

wrangler.toml
[triggers]
crons = ["0 9 * * MON-FRI"]
  • Cron Triggers run on UTC. Changes can take up to 15 minutes to propagate across Cloudflare’s network.
  • Cloudflare numbers weekdays 1 = Sunday to 7 = Saturday, unlike standard cron, so the example uses names (MON, SUN), which are unambiguous.

node-cron (Node.js)

scheduler.js
import cron from 'node-cron';

// 6 fields: the first one (seconds) is optional
cron.schedule('0 0 9 * * 1-5', async () => {
  await runJob();
}, { timezone: 'UTC', noOverlap: true });
  • The schedule lives inside the Node process: if it’s down, nothing runs, and three replicas run the job three times. noOverlap skips a tick while the previous run is still going.

systemd timer

job.timer + job.service
# /etc/systemd/system/job.timer
[Unit]
Description=Run job.service at 09:00 Monday to Friday

[Timer]
OnCalendar=Mon..Fri *-*-* 09:00:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

# /etc/systemd/system/job.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/job.sh

# systemctl daemon-reload && systemctl enable --now job.timer
  • Check it with systemd-analyze calendar 'Mon..Fri *-*-* 09:00:00', which prints the normalized form and the next elapse. AccuracySec defaults to 1min, so the start can drift by up to a minute.
  • Persistent=true runs the job at boot if the machine was off at the scheduled time, which plain cron doesn’t do.

Spring @Scheduled and Quartz

Java
@Scheduled(cron = "0 0 9 * * 1-5", zone = "UTC")
public void runJob() {
    // ...
}

// Quartz CronTrigger:
CronScheduleBuilder.cronSchedule("0 0 9 ? * MON-FRI")
  • In Spring, the first of the 6 fields is seconds; the rest follow standard cron (0 or 7 = Sunday).
  • In Quartz, one of the two day fields must be ?, and weekdays run 1 = Sunday to 7 = Saturday, which is why the example uses names.

Pitfalls

Cloudflare reads 1-5 as Sunday to Thursday

Cloudflare Cron Triggers number weekdays 1 = Sunday to 7 = Saturday. Pasting 0 9 * * 1-5 runs on Sunday through Thursday. Write 0 9 * * MON-FRI there. Quartz has the same numbering.

Converting to UTC can change the day

For zones far from UTC, 09:00 local may fall on the previous or next UTC day. 9 AM Monday in Tokyo is 00:00 Monday UTC, fine; 9 AM Monday in Auckland is Sunday 20:00 or 21:00 UTC, so the UTC weekday range becomes 0-4.

Holidays and time off

A reminder that fires on a public holiday is noise at best. Check a holiday calendar in the job, or accept it and let people mute it.

Frequently asked questions

What is the cron expression for 9 AM on weekdays?
0 9 * * 1-5 runs at 09:00 Monday through Friday.
How do I run a GitHub Actions workflow at 9 AM on weekdays in my time zone?
Use cron: '0 9 * * 1-5' with timezone: 'America/New_York' (or your zone). Without timezone the schedule is in UTC.
How do I run at 9 AM Monday to Friday on Cloudflare Workers?
crons = ["0 9 * * MON-FRI"], remembering that Cloudflare runs on UTC. 1-5 would mean Sunday to Thursday there.
How do I run every hour from 9 to 5 on weekdays?
0 9-17 * * 1-5 runs on the hour from 09:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday.

Last reviewed by Arielton Oberek.