What cron syntax does Kubernetes use?

Kubernetes uses standard 5-field POSIX cron syntax: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

Can I set a timezone for Kubernetes CronJobs?

Since Kubernetes 1.27, you can set the timeZone field in the CronJob spec. Before that, it uses the kube-controller-manager timezone.

What happens if a Kubernetes CronJob is missed?

If startingDeadlineSeconds is set, Kubernetes will still start the job within that window. Otherwise, it may be skipped.

Kubernetes CronJob — Schedule Pods on a Timer

*/5 * * * *

Every 5 minutes

Next 10 Executions

Times shown in UTC

Mon, May 18, 202608:10
Mon, May 18, 202608:15
Mon, May 18, 202608:20
Mon, May 18, 202608:25
Mon, May 18, 202608:30
Mon, May 18, 202608:35
Mon, May 18, 202608:40
Mon, May 18, 202608:45
Mon, May 18, 202608:50
Mon, May 18, 202608:55

Field Breakdown

*/5

Minute

Every 5 minutes

*

Hour

Every hour

*

Day of Month

Every day

*

Month

Every month

*

Day of Week

Every day of week

About This Schedule

Kubernetes CronJobs use standard 5-field cron syntax to schedule Jobs on a recurring basis:

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: my-cronjob
spec:
  schedule: "*/5 * * * *"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: my-job
            image: my-image:latest
          restartPolicy: OnFailure

Key points about Kubernetes CronJobs:

Standard syntax: 5 fields, same as Unix cron
Timezone: Defaults to kube-controller-manager timezone (usually UTC). Since Kubernetes 1.27, you can set timeZone field
Concurrency: Control with concurrencyPolicy: Allow, Forbid, or Replace
History: Configure successfulJobsHistoryLimit and failedJobsHistoryLimit
Deadline: Set startingDeadlineSeconds to handle missed schedules