Cron formats: Linux, Spring, Quartz and AWS
Six fields can mean different things: Spring starts with seconds; AWS ends with a year. Choose the target platform first.
| Platform | Fields | Left to right | Example | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux / Unix | 5 | minute hour day month weekday | 0 9 * * MON-FRI | Open |
| Spring | 6 | second minute hour day month weekday | 0 0 9 * * MON-FRI | Open |
| Quartz | 6 / 7 | second minute hour day month weekday [year] | 0 0 9 ? * MON-FRI | Open |
| AWS EventBridge | 6 | minute hour day month weekday year | 0 9 ? * MON-FRI * | Open |
Fields and symbols
Minutes and seconds range from 0–59, hours 0–23, days 1–31 and months 1–12. * selects all values, commas form lists, - forms ranges and / sets steps.
Linux */35 * * * * runs at minutes 0 and 35 of each hour. It is not a fixed 35-minute interval; use an interval or rate feature for that.
Common migration mistakes
Sunday is 0 or 7 in Linux and Spring, but 1 in Quartz and AWS. Names such as MON and FRI reduce ambiguity. Quartz and AWS use ? for an unspecified day field; follow their day-field rules.
Enter only Linux time fields here, without the command or username. The full AWS API expression is cron(0 9 ? * MON-FRI *).
Time zones and previews
Preview in the time zone used by your deployment. Legacy EventBridge scheduled rules use UTC; Scheduler supports a chosen time zone. Daylight-saving transitions can skip or repeat wall-clock times; a preview does not configure the actual scheduler.