Cron expression: every Monday at midnight
0 0 * * 1
Runs once a week, on Monday at 00:00.
What each field means
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| minute | 0 | minute 0 |
| hour | 0 | hour 0 |
| day of month | * | every day of month |
| month | * | every month |
| day of week | 1 | day of week 1 |
Next runs
Starting from 1 January 2026, 00:00 UTC:
- Monday 5 Jan 00:00
- Monday 12 Jan 00:00
- Monday 19 Jan 00:00
- Monday 26 Jan 00:00
- Monday 2 Feb 00:00
- Monday 9 Feb 00:00
Things to watch
Weekly jobs at midnight on a single day are a good fit for reports and cleanups. Add a few minutes of offset if several weekly jobs would otherwise start simultaneously.
Monday is the natural home for anything summarising the week just finished: a report generated now covers a complete week and lands when there are people to read it. It is also the day the weekend surfaces. If something failed quietly on Saturday, Monday is when it is found, so a Monday job that consumes weekend data should verify the data arrived rather than assume it did — the failure mode is a report that looks fine and is silently missing two days.
Whichever day you pick, check the field itself: cron numbers the week from 0 for Sunday, and both 0 and 7 are usually accepted for it. A job firing a day early or a day late is almost always an off-by-one here — writing 1 for Sunday out of habit gives you Monday.
The same schedule elsewhere
# crontab
0 0 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/my-job >> /var/log/my-job.log 2>&1
# GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/job.yml) — always UTC
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 * * 1'
# Kubernetes CronJob
spec:
schedule: "0 0 * * 1"
# AWS EventBridge — six fields, and ? in one of the day fields
cron(0 0 ? * 1 *)
Frequently asked questions
What is the cron expression to run a job every Monday at midnight?
0 0 * * 1 — Runs once a week, on Monday at 00:00.
Which time zone does cron use?
The server's local time zone, unless the scheduler says otherwise. GitHub Actions always uses UTC. Kubernetes CronJobs use UTC unless you set spec.timeZone. Running servers in UTC and converting only for display avoids an entire class of daylight-saving bugs.
What happens if the previous run is still going?
Standard cron starts a new one regardless, so long-running jobs can pile up. Wrap the command in flock -n /var/lock/my-job.lock, or set concurrencyPolicy: Forbid on a Kubernetes CronJob.
Why did my cron job not run at all?
The three usual causes: the script is not executable, the command relies on a PATH or environment variable that cron does not set, or output went nowhere because no mail transport is configured. Redirect stdout and stderr to a log file and the reason usually becomes obvious.
Other schedules
- every Tuesday at midnight
- every Wednesday at midnight
- every Thursday at midnight
- every Friday at midnight
- every Saturday at midnight
- on the first day of every month
- every month
- every quarter
- every year
- on the 15th of every month
- twice a day
- every hour during business hours
- every minute
- every 2 minutes
- every 3 minutes
- every 4 minutes
- every 5 minutes
- every 6 minutes
- every 10 minutes
- every 12 minutes