Cron in GitHub Actions: on.schedule Trigger Guide
Schedule GitHub Actions workflows with cron syntax. Understand UTC-only scheduling, minimum 5-minute intervals, and debugging skipped runs.
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Tags: developer-tools, cron, github-actions
Cron in GitHub Actions: Schedule Workflows With on.schedule Trigger GitHub Actions supports scheduled workflows via the trigger. It uses standard cron syntax and is the easiest way to run nightly builds, stale issue cleanup, dependency update checks, or any recurring CI task without external tooling. This guide covers everything that the official docs gloss over. Basic Syntax The field follows standard 5-field POSIX cron syntax: Before deploying, validate your expression at theproductguy.in/tools/cron-parser — paste it in and confirm the next several run times are what you expect. Key Constraints Minimum interval: 5 minutes GitHub Actions enforces a minimum schedule interval of 5 minutes. Attempting or will be silently rounded up or rejected. The shortest allowed schedule is . UTC only…
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