Cron Atlas

Cron expression for every day at midnight

0 0 * * *
minute0
hour0
day of monthevery day
monthevery month
day of weekany weekday

At 00:00.

Next 10 runs

In Cron, worked out in your browser from the current time.

At a glance

Runs
1 a day
Gap between runs
Always 1 day
Expressible in
All six dialects
Clock changes
No effect in the zones checked

Open in the tester

In each dialect

Every expression here is generated by the tester’s own engine and checked run for run against the others, so “Exact” means the same clock times in the same zone. Each one links to the tester.

Cron
0 0 * * *
0 0 * * * /path/to/command
  • @daily and @midnight mean the same thing.
  • Runs in the machine’s time zone. cronie also reads a CRON_TZ= line above the entry; other crons may not.
Exact
EventBridge
0 0 * * ? *
aws events put-rule --name every-day-at-midnight --schedule-expression "cron(0 0 * * ? *)"
  • Wrap it in cron(…). Day of week is ? because day of month already holds *, and a * in both is rejected. The final * is the required year field.
  • Scheduled rules always run in UTC. For local times, create it in EventBridge Scheduler with --schedule-expression-timezone.
Exact
Quartz
0 0 0 * * ?
CronScheduleBuilder.cronSchedule("0 0 0 * * ?")
  • The leading 0 is the seconds field, so it fires at the top of the minute. Day of week is ? because day of month already holds *, and a * in both is rejected. The optional year is left off.
  • Uses the JVM’s default zone unless the trigger sets one with inTimeZone.
Exact
Kubernetes
0 0 * * *
schedule: "0 0 * * *"
  • @daily and @midnight mean the same thing.
  • Without timeZone under spec, these times are in the kube-controller-manager’s zone. A CRON_TZ= prefix in the schedule fails validation.
Exact
GitHub
0 0 * * *
- cron: '0 0 * * *'
  • GitHub warns that schedules can be delayed at high load, which includes the start of every hour, and that some queued jobs may be dropped. A different minute reduces the risk.
  • Times are UTC unless you add timezone: beside cron, with an IANA name.
Exact
Azure
0 0 0 * * *
[TimerTrigger("0 0 0 * * *")]
  • Six fields with seconds first, so the leading 0 fires at the top of the minute.
  • UTC unless the app sets WEBSITE_TIME_ZONE, which Linux Consumption and Flex Consumption plans do not support.
Exact

About this schedule

Minute 0 of hour 0, every day. Midnight in the scheduler’s zone, that is: on GitHub, EventBridge rules and Azure that is UTC unless you set a zone, which is often the middle of someone’s afternoon.

Clock changes

None of these times falls in the hour that clocks skip or repeat in New York, London, Berlin, Helsinki or Sydney, so every dialect runs it normally all year there. Zones that change clocks at other hours can still differ.

Questions

What is the cron expression for every day at midnight?
0 0 * * * in standard cron, Kubernetes and GitHub Actions. The other dialects differ: 0 0 * * ? * in EventBridge; 0 0 0 * * ? in Quartz; 0 0 0 * * * in Azure.
Is @daily the same as 0 0 * * *?
Yes, in standard cron and in Kubernetes. GitHub Actions does not accept @ shortcuts, and EventBridge, Quartz and Azure have none, so write the fields out there.
Which time zone does it run in?
It depends on the scheduler. GitHub Actions, EventBridge rules and Azure use UTC unless you set a zone (timezone, EventBridge Scheduler’s --schedule-expression-timezone, WEBSITE_TIME_ZONE). Kubernetes uses .spec.timeZone or the controller manager’s zone, Quartz the JVM’s zone or inTimeZone, and cron the machine’s zone or CRON_TZ.

More schedules