Cron Expression 0 0 * * 0 Meaning
Cron expression 0 0 * * 0 means At 12:00 AM, on Sunday.
Cron expression 0 0 * * 0 means run once every week on Sunday at midnight. This 2026 guide explains weekly cron timing and practical deployment patterns.
Cron Expression
Common use cases
- Weekly maintenance windows on low-traffic periods
- Sunday data warehouse compaction and optimization
- Weekly backup verification and retention audits
- Publishing weekly summaries for stakeholders
How to use this cron schedule
Cron expression 0 0 * * 0 means execute at minute 0, hour 0, on any day-of-month and month, but only weekday 0. In most Unix cron systems, weekday 0 maps to Sunday. So this expression runs at 12:00 AM every Sunday. If you searched for cron expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning, this is the exact schedule behavior. In 2026, teams still prefer this pattern for weekly jobs that should run once at a clear boundary without introducing extra logic inside application code.
This expression is useful for weekly maintenance, archive checks, and report bundles that do not need daily cadence. It also creates a clean operational rhythm for teams that review outcomes on Monday morning. As always, verify weekday numbering in your scheduler, because some tools support both 0 and 7 for Sunday. A short validation in staging avoids off-by-one-day mistakes. If your scheduler uses UTC, check whether Sunday midnight UTC aligns with your local business week before production rollout.
For higher reliability in 2026 deployments, pair this weekly cron with pre-flight checks and completion alerts. Weekly jobs often process larger volumes, so timeouts and retries should be tuned differently from daily tasks. Keep logs structured with job identifiers, run duration, and output counts to make troubleshooting fast. If the workflow becomes multi-step, split it into chained schedules instead of one oversized script. That keeps weekly automation maintainable while preserving the clarity of `0 0 * * 0`.
Want to customize this schedule?
Open it in the visual builder to tweak the expression interactively.
Open in BuilderNeed to monitor this cron job?
Cronhub tracks your scheduled jobs and alerts you if they fail or run late.
Platform usage examples
# Edit your crontab
crontab -e
# Add this line to run expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning
0 0 * * 0 /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/script.php
# Or run a shell script
0 0 * * 0 /home/user/scripts/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1# .github/workflows/scheduled.yml
name: Scheduled Job
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 * * 0'
jobs:
run:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run job
run: echo "Running expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning"apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
name: my-scheduled-job
spec:
schedule: "0 0 * * 0"
jobTemplate:
spec:
template:
spec:
containers:
- name: job
image: my-image:latest
restartPolicy: OnFailureRelated developer tools
More free tools for engineering workflows that pair with scheduled jobs:
Frequently asked questions
What is the cron expression for expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning?
The cron expression is 0 0 * * 0. Cron expression 0 0 * * 0 means run once every week on Sunday at midnight. This 2026 guide explains weekly cron timing and practical deployment patterns.
How do I schedule a cron job to run expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning in Linux?
Open your crontab with "crontab -e" and add a new line: 0 0 * * 0 /path/to/your/script.sh — this schedules your script to run expression 0 0 * * 0 meaning. Save and exit; the cron daemon picks up the change immediately.
What does the cron expression "0 0 * * 0" mean?
Cron expression 0 0 * * 0 means run once every week on Sunday at midnight. This 2026 guide explains weekly cron timing and practical deployment patterns.
Can I use "0 0 * * 0" in GitHub Actions?
Yes. In your workflow YAML, set the schedule trigger: on: schedule: - cron: '0 0 * * 0'. GitHub Actions uses standard 5-field Unix cron syntax, so this expression works as-is.