Cron Expression 0 18 * * 1-5 (2026)
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means At 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday.
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 runs at 6:00 PM on weekdays. This 2026 page explains weekday semantics, timezone pitfalls, and end-of-day reliability patterns.
Cron Expression
Common use cases
- Day-end reconciliation for finance and operations
- Weekday-only export jobs to partner systems
- Evening SLA and backlog checks after business hours
- Workday summary generation without weekend runs
How to use this cron schedule
Cron expression `0 18 * * 1-5` means minute 0, hour 18, any day and month, but only weekdays 1 through 5. In standard Unix cron, that maps to Monday through Friday at 6:00 PM. If your goal is a weekday day-end run, this is the direct expression to use in 2026. It is a common schedule for pipelines that should process complete business-day activity while skipping weekends. The expression is short, readable, and easy for teams to review during change approvals and incident retrospectives.
Weekday schedules still need platform validation. Confirm that your scheduler interprets `1-5` as Monday-Friday and check whether execution is based on UTC or local timezone. A correct cron line can still fire at the wrong business hour when timezone settings are implicit. Add retries with bounded backoff and include output counts in logs so operators can quickly confirm completeness. For high-impact workflows, publish a completion marker to the channel that consumes the output so stakeholders know the day-end data is ready.
Operationally, keep this 6 PM weekday job narrow in scope and chain downstream tasks explicitly rather than packing multiple concerns into one script. Clear stage boundaries reduce debugging time and prevent one failure from blocking unrelated work. Track last-success timestamp, runtime growth, and error streaks, then alert on trends that indicate degradation. This page serves as the copy-safe reference for `0 18 * * 1-5`, with related links for daily 7 AM and weekly Sunday-midnight alternatives when cadence changes are needed.
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 18 * * 1-5 (2026)
0 18 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/script.php
# Or run a shell script
0 18 * * 1-5 /home/user/scripts/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1# .github/workflows/scheduled.yml
name: Scheduled Job
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 18 * * 1-5'
jobs:
run:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run job
run: echo "Running expression 0 18 * * 1-5 (2026)"apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
name: my-scheduled-job
spec:
schedule: "0 18 * * 1-5"
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 18 * * 1-5 (2026)?
The cron expression is 0 18 * * 1-5. Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 runs at 6:00 PM on weekdays. This 2026 page explains weekday semantics, timezone pitfalls, and end-of-day reliability patterns.
How do I schedule a cron job to run expression 0 18 * * 1-5 (2026) in Linux?
Open your crontab with "crontab -e" and add a new line: 0 18 * * 1-5 /path/to/your/script.sh — this schedules your script to run expression 0 18 * * 1-5 (2026). Save and exit; the cron daemon picks up the change immediately.
What does the cron expression "0 18 * * 1-5" mean?
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 runs at 6:00 PM on weekdays. This 2026 page explains weekday semantics, timezone pitfalls, and end-of-day reliability patterns.
Can I use "0 18 * * 1-5" in GitHub Actions?
Yes. In your workflow YAML, set the schedule trigger: on: schedule: - cron: '0 18 * * 1-5'. GitHub Actions uses standard 5-field Unix cron syntax, so this expression works as-is.