Cron: Every Weekday
0 0 * * 1-5 runs Monday through Friday, skipping Saturday and Sunday entirely — the 1-5 range covers exactly the standard work week. It's the go-to pattern for business-hours automation, weekday-only reports, and jobs tied to office operations rather than calendar days.
0 0 * * 1-5
Examples & Variations
Common Mistakes
- Writing 1-5 in the wrong field — it needs to be in the day-of-week position (5th field in a standard 5-field expression), not day-of-month.
- Forgetting that public holidays still count as weekdays to cron — a Monday holiday won't be automatically skipped, since cron has no concept of holiday calendars.
- Using MON-FRI text shorthand in systems that don't support named ranges — while some cron implementations accept month/day names, not all do; numeric ranges (1-5) are the safest, most portable choice.
Best Practices
- For genuinely business-day-aware scheduling (skipping holidays), handle the holiday check in application logic — cron itself only understands day-of-week, not a holiday calendar.
- Combine with an hour range (9-17) for anything that should only run during actual office hours, not just weekdays at any time.
- Prefer numeric day ranges (1-5) over named ones (MON-FRI) for maximum portability across different cron implementations and schedulers.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Does 1-5 in the day-of-week field mean Monday through Friday?
- Yes — in standard cron numbering (0=Sunday through 6=Saturday), 1-5 covers Monday through Friday inclusive, which is exactly the conventional work week.
- Will a weekday cron job automatically skip public holidays?
- No. Cron has no awareness of holiday calendars — a job scheduled 0 0 * * 1-5 will still fire on a Monday that happens to be a public holiday. Skipping holidays requires logic inside the job itself.
- Is MON-FRI valid instead of 1-5?
- Many cron implementations accept three-letter day names as an alternative to numbers, but support isn't universal. Numeric ranges are the more portable choice across different systems.