Scheduling Guide

HookWatch supports both standard cron expressions and human-readable schedules. Learn how to define when your jobs run.

Human-readable Schedules

The easiest way to define a schedule. HookWatch automatically converts these to cron expressions.

Schedule	Description
`every minute`	Runs every minute
`every 5 minutes`	Runs every 5 minutes
`every hour`	Runs at the start of every hour
`every day at 9am`	Runs daily at 9:00 AM
`every day at 2:30pm`	Runs daily at 2:30 PM
`every monday at 9am`	Runs every Monday at 9:00 AM
`every weekday at 9am`	Runs Monday-Friday at 9:00 AM
`every month on the 1st`	Runs on the 1st of every month
`every sunday at midnight`	Runs every Sunday at 12:00 AM

Cron Expression Format

For more complex schedules, use standard 5-field cron expressions:

┌───────────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌───────────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0-6, Sunday=0)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Special Characters

Character	Meaning	Example
`*`	Any value	`* * * * *` - every minute
`,`	Value list	`0 9,17 * * *` - at 9am and 5pm
`-`	Range	`0 9 * * 1-5` - weekdays at 9am
`/`	Step	`/15 * * *` - every 15 minutes
`@`	Preset	`@hourly`, `@daily`, `@weekly`

Common Examples

Every 5 minutes */5 * * * *

Every hour at minute 30 30 * * * *

Daily at 2:00 AM 0 2 * * *

Weekdays at 9:00 AM 0 9 * * 1-5

Every Sunday at midnight 0 0 * * 0

First day of month at 6:00 AM 0 6 1 * *

Every 6 hours 0 */6 * * *

9am and 5pm on weekdays 0 9,17 * * 1-5

Preset Schedules

Use these shortcuts for common schedules:

Preset	Equivalent	Description
`@yearly`	`0 0 1 1 *`	Once a year at midnight on Jan 1st
`@monthly`	`0 0 1 * *`	Once a month at midnight on the 1st
`@weekly`	`0 0 * * 0`	Once a week at midnight on Sunday
`@daily`	`0 0 * * *`	Once a day at midnight
`@hourly`	`0 * * * *`	Once an hour at the beginning

Explain a Schedule

Use the CLI to understand what a cron expression means:

Terminal

Timezone

All schedules run in UTC timezone. Make sure to convert your local time when setting schedules. For example, 9am EST is 2pm UTC (during standard time).

Tips

Start with human-readable schedules - they're easier to understand and less error-prone
Use the hookwatch cron explain command to verify your expression before creating a job
Avoid running jobs at exactly the top of the hour (e.g., 0 * * * *) - many systems do this, which can cause congestion
The minimum interval is 1 minute. For more frequent execution, consider using webhooks instead