PatternCron

Every 10 minutes, overnight only

A batch-processing window that only runs while traffic is quiet: every 10 minutes, but strictly between midnight and 6 AM.

Last updated

Pattern
*/10 0-5 * * *
Open in Crontab Schedule Creator

In plain English

  • Fires every 10 minutes between 00:00 and 05:59
  • 36 runs per night

Why it’s written this way

*/10 in the minute field gives six firings an hour; 0-5 in the hour field restricts those hours to midnight through 05:59. Combined, the job runs every 10 minutes for a fixed six-hour overnight window and stays silent the rest of the day.

Restricting both minute and hour like this is how a 'window' schedule gets built out of fields that only know how to say 'at this time' or 'every N units' — the window itself is just the hour range doing the work.

Edge cases to know

  • Cron hour ranges don't wrap: 0-5 means midnight through 5am, but there's no way to write '22 through 5' as a single range. An overnight window crossing midnight the other direction needs a comma list instead, like 22,23,0,1,2,3,4,5.
  • Six hours at a 10-minute cadence is 36 runs a night; if the batch job occasionally runs long, the window can end with a run still in flight when 06:00 arrives — decide up front whether it should be killed or allowed to finish past the boundary.
  • The window is defined in the server's local clock; a host set to UTC has a very different 'overnight' than one set to local time — confirm which one before assuming this actually covers the low-traffic hours.

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