PatternCron
Quarter-hourly, off the herd
Same cadence as */15, shifted 7 minutes off the beat — so this job never competes with everyone else's :00, :15, :30 and :45 jobs.
Last updated
In plain English
- Fires at :07, :22, :37 and :52 of every hour
- 96 runs per day
Why it’s written this way
7,22,37,52 is an explicit comma list rather than a step: four fixed minutes, each 15 apart, offset from the usual :00/:15/:30/:45 grid most cron jobs default to. The other four fields stay *, so it repeats every hour.
A step value like */15 would have been shorter to write, but it always lands on multiples of 15 counted from zero — there's no way to make */15 start at :07 instead. An explicit list is the only way to keep the interval while shifting its phase.
Edge cases to know
- →This solves the 'thundering herd' problem: if every job on a shared host or downstream API fires at :00, :15, :30 and :45, adding a fixed offset spreads the load without changing how often the job runs.
- →The offset only helps if OTHER jobs are actually sitting on the standard grid; on a host where everything is already staggered, this just adds one more arbitrary time to keep track of.
- →Four explicit minutes are harder to read at a glance than */15 — a comment on the crontab line explaining why it's offset saves the next person from 'simplifying' it back onto the grid.