Explain cron expressions in English, list next run times, and catch scheduling gotchas.
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Convert an English schedule description into a standard five-field cron expression, then explain and validate the result. Use this when a user describes a schedule in words and needs the expression. This is a RULE-BASED converter, not a language model: it handles a fixed grammar and returns an error listing the supported phrasings when a phrase falls outside it. That refusal is deliberate — a plausible-looking wrong schedule is worse than no answer. If a phrase is rejected, rephrase it into one of the supported shapes and call again. Returns the expression, which rule matched, any words the rules did not use (check these — leftover words may mean the phrase was misread), the English description of the result, warnings, and the next run times.
An English schedule description, for example "every weekday at 9am" or "on the 1st of every month at midnight". Times accept 24-hour ("14:30"), 12-hour ("2:30pm"), "midnight", and "noon".
IANA timezone name, for example "UTC", "America/New_York", or "Europe/Berlin". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC.
Convert an English schedule description into a standard five-field cron expression, then explain and validate the result. Use this when a user describes a schedule in words and needs the expression. This is a RULE-BASED converter, not a language model: it handles a fixed grammar and returns an error listing the supported phrasings when a phrase falls outside it. That refusal is deliberate — a plausible-looking wrong schedule is worse than no answer. If a phrase is rejected, rephrase it into one of the supported shapes and call again. Returns the expression, which rule matched, any words the rules did not use (check these — leftover words may mean the phrase was misread), the English description of the result, warnings, and the next run times.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| phrase* | string | An English schedule description, for example "every weekday at 9am" or "on the 1st of every month at midnight". Times accept 24-hour ("14:30"), 12-hour ("2:30pm"), "midnight", and "noon". |
| timezone | string | IANA timezone name, for example "UTC", "America/New_York", or "Europe/Berlin". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC. |
{
"type": "object",
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"required": [
"phrase"
],
"properties": {
"phrase": {
"type": "string",
"description": "An English schedule description, for example \"every weekday at 9am\" or \"on the 1st of every month at midnight\". Times accept 24-hour (\"14:30\"), 12-hour (\"2:30pm\"), \"midnight\", and \"noon\"."
},
"timezone": {
"type": "string",
"default": "UTC",
"description": "IANA timezone name, for example \"UTC\", \"America/New_York\", or \"Europe/Berlin\". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC."
}
}
}Translate a cron expression into plain English, list its upcoming run times in a specific timezone, and report the gotchas that make schedules misfire. Use this whenever a cron expression needs to be read, verified, or explained — and prefer it over reasoning about the expression directly. Cron has several counter-intuitive rules that are easy to get wrong: day-of-month and day-of-week are combined with OR (not AND) when both are set, steps like */7 do not divide their field evenly, dates like February 30 never fire at all, and daylight-saving transitions skip or repeat runs. This tool checks all of them. Returns the normalised expression, a one-sentence description, a per-field breakdown, a list of warnings with severity and a fix for each, the next run times as both UTC ISO 8601 instants and local wall-clock strings, and an approximate runs-per-day figure.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| count | integer | How many upcoming run times to return. 1-25, default 5. |
| timezone | string | IANA timezone name, for example "UTC", "America/New_York", or "Europe/Berlin". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC. |
| expression* | string | A standard five-field cron expression: "minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week", for example "0 9 * * 1-5". Accepts *, numbers, ranges (9-17), lists (1,15), steps (*/5), three-letter month and day names (JAN, MON), and the @daily, @hourly, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly macros. A six-field expression is accepted and its leading seconds field is reported as non-standard. |
List the next run times for a cron expression in a specific timezone, with no prose. Use this when the only question is "when does this next fire" — for example to check whether a job will run before a deadline, or to show a user their upcoming schedule. Do not compute these dates yourself: weekday arithmetic, month lengths, and daylight-saving shifts make manual calculation unreliable. Returns each run as a UTC ISO 8601 instant plus a local wall-clock rendering in the requested timezone. Refuses Quartz-only syntax (L, W, #, ?) rather than guessing.
| Argument | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| count | integer | How many upcoming run times to return. 1-25, default 5. |
| timezone | string | IANA timezone name, for example "UTC", "America/New_York", or "Europe/Berlin". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC. |
| expression* | string | A standard five-field cron expression: "minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week", for example "0 9 * * 1-5". Accepts *, numbers, ranges (9-17), lists (1,15), steps (*/5), three-letter month and day names (JAN, MON), and the @daily, @hourly, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly macros. A six-field expression is accepted and its leading seconds field is reported as non-standard. |
{
"type": "object",
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"required": [
"expression"
],
"properties": {
"count": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 5,
"maximum": 25,
"minimum": 1,
"description": "How many upcoming run times to return. 1-25, default 5."
},
"timezone": {
"type": "string",
"default": "UTC",
"description": "IANA timezone name, for example \"UTC\", \"America/New_York\", or \"Europe/Berlin\". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC."
},
"expression": {
"type": "string",
"description": "A standard five-field cron expression: \"minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week\", for example \"0 9 * * 1-5\". Accepts *, numbers, ranges (9-17), lists (1,15), steps (*/5), three-letter month and day names (JAN, MON), and the @daily, @hourly, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly macros. A six-field expression is accepted and its leading seconds field is reported as non-standard."
}
}
}{
"type": "object",
"$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
"required": [
"expression"
],
"properties": {
"count": {
"type": "integer",
"default": 5,
"maximum": 25,
"minimum": 1,
"description": "How many upcoming run times to return. 1-25, default 5."
},
"timezone": {
"type": "string",
"default": "UTC",
"description": "IANA timezone name, for example \"UTC\", \"America/New_York\", or \"Europe/Berlin\". Cron expressions carry no timezone of their own, so this decides when the schedule actually fires. Defaults to UTC."
},
"expression": {
"type": "string",
"description": "A standard five-field cron expression: \"minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week\", for example \"0 9 * * 1-5\". Accepts *, numbers, ranges (9-17), lists (1,15), steps (*/5), three-letter month and day names (JAN, MON), and the @daily, @hourly, @weekly, @monthly, @yearly macros. A six-field expression is accepted and its leading seconds field is reported as non-standard."
}
}
}