Cron First Day of Month
Cron expression 0 0 1 * * means At 12:00 AM, on the 1st.
Cron expression to run a job on the first day of every month at midnight: 0 0 1 * *. Fires 12 times per year — one of the most common monthly schedule patterns.
Cron Expression
Common use cases
- Monthly invoice generation and billing cycles
- Resetting monthly usage quotas and limits
- Generating month-over-month analytics reports
- Archiving the previous month's data
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 first day of month
0 0 1 * * /usr/bin/php /var/www/html/script.php
# Or run a shell script
0 0 1 * * /home/user/scripts/job.sh >> /var/log/job.log 2>&1# .github/workflows/scheduled.yml
name: Scheduled Job
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 1 * *'
jobs:
run:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run job
run: echo "Running first day of month"apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
name: my-scheduled-job
spec:
schedule: "0 0 1 * *"
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 first day of month?
The cron expression is 0 0 1 * *. Cron expression to run a job on the first day of every month at midnight: 0 0 1 * *. Fires 12 times per year — one of the most common monthly schedule patterns.
How do I schedule a cron job to run first day of month in Linux?
Open your crontab with "crontab -e" and add a new line: 0 0 1 * * /path/to/your/script.sh — this schedules your script to run first day of month. Save and exit; the cron daemon picks up the change immediately.
What does the cron expression "0 0 1 * *" mean?
Cron expression to run a job on the first day of every month at midnight: 0 0 1 * *. Fires 12 times per year — one of the most common monthly schedule patterns.
Can I use "0 0 1 * *" in GitHub Actions?
Yes. In your workflow YAML, set the schedule trigger: on: schedule: - cron: '0 0 1 * *'. GitHub Actions uses standard 5-field Unix cron syntax, so this expression works as-is.