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DevOps & CI/CD Cron Expressions
Essential cron expressions for DevOps pipelines and CI/CD automation. Jenkins nightly builds, Docker cleanup, Terraform drift detection, Ansible patching, and more.
Featured Patterns
0 2 * * 1-5
Jenkins Nightly Build — Weeknights at 2 AM
Jenkins pipeline triggered every weeknight at 2:00 AM for nightly build and integration test runs. Configure in Jenkinsfile with 'triggers { cron("0 2 * * 1-5") }'. Avoids weekend builds to save resources.
Jenkins nightly integration testsWeeknight build verification
0 3 * * 0
Docker Image Cleanup — Weekly Sunday 3 AM
Docker image and container cleanup job every Sunday at 3:00 AM. Runs 'docker image prune', 'docker container prune', and 'docker volume prune' to reclaim disk space on build servers and registries.
docker image prune weeklyContainer registry cleanup
0 6 * * 1-5
Terraform Drift Detection — Weekdays 6 AM
Terraform plan runs every weekday morning at 6:00 AM to detect infrastructure drift before the workday begins. Alerts teams to unauthorized manual changes, failed applies, or configuration inconsistencies.
Terraform plan drift detectionIaC compliance check weekdays
0 2 * * 0
Ansible Weekly Patch Run — Sunday 2 AM
Ansible playbook scheduled every Sunday at 2:00 AM for weekly server patching, package updates, and configuration management. Low-traffic window ensures minimal user impact during maintenance.
Ansible OS patching SundayPackage update playbook weekly
0 * * * *
Every Hour (at :00)
Runs once at the top of every hour (:00), 24 times per day. The standard hourly cron schedule.
Hourly reportsCache invalidation
0 0 * * *
Daily at Midnight (00:00)
Runs once per day at midnight UTC. The most common daily cron schedule.
Nightly database backupsDaily report generation
*/5 * * * *
Every 5 Minutes
Runs every 5 minutes, 288 times per day. One of the most popular cron schedules for frequent background jobs.
Health checksCache refresh
*/15 * * * *
Every 15 Minutes
Runs every 15 minutes (at :00, :15, :30, :45), 96 times per day. Common for lightweight periodic tasks.
Email digest processingPeriodic data sync
0 0 * * 0
Log Rotation — Every Sunday at Midnight
Triggers log rotation and archival every Sunday at midnight. A weekly maintenance cron for compressing old log files, rotating application logs, and archiving server access logs before the new week.
Weekly log rotationSunday log archival
Related Patterns
*/45 * * * *
Every 45 Minutes
Runs every 45 minutes. Note: because 45 doesn't divide 60 evenly, runs occur at :00 and :45 each hour.
15 * * * *
Hourly at :15
Runs at 15 minutes past every hour (:15), 24 times per day. Useful when you want to offset from other hourly jobs.
30 * * * *
Hourly at :30
Runs at 30 minutes past every hour (:30), 24 times per day.
45 * * * *
Hourly at :45
Runs at 45 minutes past every hour (:45), 24 times per day.
0 */4 * * *
Every 4 Hours
Runs every 4 hours (00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00), 6 times per day.
0 3 * * *
Daily at 3:00 AM
Runs once per day at 3:00 AM UTC. Often used for heavy batch jobs during minimal traffic.
0 4 * * *
Daily at 4:00 AM
Runs once per day at 4:00 AM UTC.
0 0 * * 2
Weekly on Tuesday at Midnight
Runs once a week on Tuesday at midnight UTC.