---

name: cron-scheduling description: | Cron and scheduled task management. node-cron, cron expressions, Spring @Scheduled, APScheduler (Python), and distributed scheduling patterns.

USE WHEN: user mentions "cron", "scheduled task", "cron job", "node-cron", "@Scheduled", "APScheduler", "periodic task", "crontab"

DO NOT USE FOR: job queues with workers - use job-queues; one-off delayed tasks - use job-queues allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Write, Edit

Cron Scheduling

Cron Expression Syntax

┌─────── minute (0-59)
│ ┌────── hour (0-23)
│ │ ┌───── day of month (1-31)
│ │ │ ┌──── month (1-12)
│ │ │ │ ┌─── day of week (0-7, 0 and 7 = Sunday)
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

Expression	Schedule
0 * * * *	Every hour
*/15 * * * *	Every 15 minutes
0 9 * * 1-5	Weekdays at 9:00 AM
0 0 1 * *	First day of month, midnight
0 */6 * * *	Every 6 hours

Node.js (node-cron)

import cron from 'node-cron';

// Run every day at 2:00 AM
cron.schedule('0 2 * * *', async () => {
  console.log('Running daily cleanup...');
  await cleanupExpiredSessions();
}, {
  timezone: 'America/New_York',
});

// Run every 5 minutes
cron.schedule('*/5 * * * *', async () => {
  await syncExternalData();
});

With Distributed Locking (prevent duplicate runs)

import { Redlock } from 'redlock';

const redlock = new Redlock([redis]);

cron.schedule('0 * * * *', async () => {
  let lock;
  try {
    lock = await redlock.acquire(['cron:hourly-report'], 60000);
    await generateHourlyReport();
  } catch (err) {
    if (err instanceof Redlock.LockError) return; // Another instance has the lock
    throw err;
  } finally {
    await lock?.release();
  }
});

Spring @Scheduled (Java)

@Component
@EnableScheduling
public class ScheduledTasks {

    @Scheduled(cron = "0 0 2 * * *") // Daily at 2 AM
    public void dailyCleanup() {
        sessionRepo.deleteExpired();
    }

    @Scheduled(fixedRate = 300000) // Every 5 minutes
    public void syncData() {
        externalService.sync();
    }

    @Scheduled(fixedDelay = 60000) // 60s after last completion
    public void processQueue() {
        queueService.processNext();
    }
}

Distributed Scheduling (ShedLock)

@Scheduled(cron = "0 */10 * * * *")
@SchedulerLock(name = "syncInventory", lockAtLeastFor = "5m", lockAtMostFor = "10m")
public void syncInventory() {
    inventoryService.syncAll();
}

Python (APScheduler)

from apscheduler.schedulers.asyncio import AsyncIOScheduler
from apscheduler.triggers.cron import CronTrigger

scheduler = AsyncIOScheduler()

@scheduler.scheduled_job(CronTrigger(hour=2, minute=0))
async def daily_cleanup():
    await cleanup_expired_sessions()

@scheduler.scheduled_job('interval', minutes=5)
async def sync_data():
    await sync_external_data()

scheduler.start()

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Fix
Cron on multiple instances without locking	Use distributed lock (Redlock, ShedLock)
Long-running cron blocks next run	Use job queue for heavy work
No error handling in cron	Wrap in try-catch, log errors, alert
Hardcoded schedule	Use environment variable or config
No monitoring of cron execution	Log start/end times, track failures

Production Checklist

• Distributed locking for multi-instance deployments
• Error handling with alerting
• Execution time monitoring
• Timezone explicitly set
• Graceful shutdown (finish current job)
• Cron expressions documented