Cron Reference

Cron Expression 0 18 * * 1-5 Weekdays at 6PM GitHub Actions (2026)

Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 means At 6:00 PM, Monday through Friday.

Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6PM for GitHub Actions in 2026. Configure weekday scheduling correctly and ship reliable end-of-day workflows.

Cron Expression

0 18 * * 1-5
0Minute
18Hour
*Day
*Month
1-5Weekday

Common use cases

  • Weekday end-of-day repository automation
  • Business-day report generation in Actions
  • Monday-Friday data export workflows
  • After-hours summaries that skip weekends

How to use this cron schedule

For cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6pm GitHub Actions, set `on: schedule: - cron: '0 18 * * 1-5'` in your workflow file. This runs Monday through Friday at 18:00 UTC. If your team expects 6 PM local time, convert the hour accordingly before deployment. In 2026, UTC assumptions still cause many false escalations on weekday jobs, especially for teams spread across multiple U.S. time zones. Treat timezone notes as required documentation, not optional comments.

Weekday schedules are ideal for business-day close tasks, but reliability depends on execution controls. Add `concurrency` to avoid overlapping runs, define conservative timeouts, and keep writes idempotent so reruns do not create duplicate records. When workflows publish downstream metrics or exports, include output counts and completion markers in job summaries. This makes next-morning triage faster when stakeholders report missing data. In GitHub Actions, explicit observability is often the difference between quick recovery and prolonged uncertainty.

A strong 2026 pattern is staged automation: preflight checks, core processing, then post-run notifications. Keep each stage focused and versioned so code review catches logic changes before schedule drift reaches production. Alert only on consecutive failures or repeated partial outputs to maintain signal quality. If weekend processing is later required, add a separate cron entry rather than broadening this weekday expression with conditional logic. Use this page as the copy-safe reference for `0 18 * * 1-5` in GitHub Actions and compare related Linux and hourly variants.

Want to customize this schedule?

Open it in the visual builder to tweak the expression interactively.

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Need to monitor this cron job?

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Platform usage examples

Linux / Unix — crontab
# Edit your crontab
crontab -e

# Add this line to run expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6pm github actions (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 Actions
# .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 weekdays at 6pm github actions (2026)"
Kubernetes CronJob
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: OnFailure

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Frequently asked questions

What is the cron expression for expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6pm github actions (2026)?

The cron expression is 0 18 * * 1-5. Cron expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6PM for GitHub Actions in 2026. Configure weekday scheduling correctly and ship reliable end-of-day workflows.

How do I schedule a cron job to run expression 0 18 * * 1-5 weekdays at 6pm github actions (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 weekdays at 6pm github actions (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 weekdays at 6PM for GitHub Actions in 2026. Configure weekday scheduling correctly and ship reliable end-of-day workflows.

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.

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