Schedules & UTC
CronBeacon uses UTC for all schedules. This is a deliberate choice.
Why UTC?
- No DST surprises — daylight saving time shifts don't cause false missing alerts
- Deterministic behavior — the same schedule always means the same thing
- Simpler debugging — no ambiguity about which timezone a schedule refers to
Cron expressions
Monitors use standard 5-field cron expressions:
| Field | Values | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0-59 | 30 = at minute 30 |
| Hour | 0-23 | 2 = at 2 AM UTC |
| Day of month | 1-31 | 15 = on the 15th |
| Month | 1-12 | * = every month |
| Day of week | 0-7 | 1 = Monday |
Examples:
0 2 * * *— every day at 2:00 AM UTC*/5 * * * *— every 5 minutes0 0 * * 1— every Monday at midnight UTC30 14 1 * *— 1st of every month at 2:30 PM UTC