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Cron: Every 5 Minutes

*/5 * * * * is one of the most widely used cron schedules — it fires 12 times an hour, at :00, :05, :10, and so on, striking a practical balance between freshness and load. It's the default polling interval for countless monitoring agents, cache warmers, and sync jobs.

*/5 * * * *

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Examples & Variations

*/5 * * * *

Every 5 minutes, all day

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*/5 8-20 * * *

Every 5 minutes, 8 AM–8 PM only

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*/5 * * * 1-5

Every 5 minutes, weekdays only

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Common Mistakes

  • Treating */5 as exactly 300 seconds apart in wall-clock time when the scheduler itself has jitter — most job runners fire within a window, not to the exact second.
  • Running database-heavy jobs every 5 minutes without checking whether the previous run finished, which can quietly queue up parallel executions under load.
  • Using */5 for something that only needs to run a few times a day — it multiplies unnecessary invocations and log noise.

Best Practices

  • This is a safe default for status polling, cache refresh, and metrics collection — use it unless you have a specific reason to go tighter or looser.
  • Restrict to business hours (*/5 8-20 * * *) if the job supports a user-facing feature that isn't needed overnight, to cut unnecessary load.
  • Add basic instrumentation (a counter or last-run timestamp) so a stuck job is obvious well before it becomes a real incident.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is every 5 minutes such a common default?
It's frequent enough to feel near-real-time for dashboards and syncs, but infrequent enough that 12 runs an hour rarely stresses a typical server or API rate limit — a practical sweet spot most tools default to.
Does */5 * * * * work in GitHub Actions?
Yes, GitHub Actions supports standard cron syntax for scheduled workflows, though GitHub explicitly warns that schedules can be delayed during periods of high load — don't rely on exact timing.
How do I run every 5 minutes but only during work hours?
Add an hour range: */5 9-17 * * 1-5 runs every 5 minutes, 9 AM to 5:59 PM, Monday through Friday.

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Cron: Every 2 Minutes

Run a cron job every 2 minutes with */2 * * * *. Learn how the step syntax works, common pitfalls, and when to use it instead of every-minute.

Cron: Every 10 Minutes

Schedule a cron job every 10 minutes with */10 * * * *. See variations, common mistakes, and when 10-minute polling makes sense.

Cron: Every 15 Minutes

The cron expression for every 15 minutes is */15 * * * *. See quarter-hour scheduling examples, mistakes to avoid, and best practices.