Cron Expression 0 18 * * 1-5 Meaning
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means At 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday.
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means run at 6:00 PM on weekdays (Monday through Friday). Use this guide to understand the pattern and apply it to end-of-day business automations.
Cron Expression
Common use cases
- Weekday end-of-day reconciliation and exports
- After-hours summary reports for operations teams
- Business-day notifications that skip weekends
- Post-close data snapshots for dashboards
How to use this cron schedule
Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means execute at minute 0, hour 18, on 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 you searched for cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 meaning, this is the exact schedule. It is widely used in 2026 for day-end automations that should run after business hours while avoiding unnecessary weekend processing.
This cadence is ideal for workflows that depend on a full business day of data, such as reconciliation, sales rollups, and partner exports. Compared with a daily schedule, the weekday filter reduces empty weekend runs and lowers alert noise. Before deployment, verify weekday numbering behavior in your scheduler and test next-run timestamps in staging. Most systems treat 1 as Monday, but minor differences can still create production mistakes if teams assume behavior without checking.
For stable operations, pair this cron with retries, timeout limits, and clear ownership. End-of-day jobs often feed planning activity the next morning, so silent failures can propagate quickly. Publish a status message after completion so stakeholders know data is trustworthy. If you later need weekend support, add a separate cron expression rather than overloading one command with branching logic. Keeping schedules explicit improves maintainability and speeds up debugging during incidents.
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 meaning
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 meaning"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 meaning?
The cron expression is 0 18 * * 1-5. Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means run at 6:00 PM on weekdays (Monday through Friday). Use this guide to understand the pattern and apply it to end-of-day business automations.
How do I schedule a cron job to run expression 0 18 * * 1-5 meaning 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 meaning. 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 means run at 6:00 PM on weekdays (Monday through Friday). Use this guide to understand the pattern and apply it to end-of-day business automations.
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.