Cron syntax is one of those things that looks simple until you actually need to write one. Five asterisks staring back at you and you can't remember which field is the day of week. This tool converts plain English like "every Tuesday at 3pm" into the exact cron expression. It even shows you the next few run times so you can verify it's right.

One command. Zero config. Just works.

Quick Start

npx ai-cron-gen "every day at midnight"

What It Does

Converts plain English schedule descriptions to cron expressions
Shows the human-readable meaning of the generated expression
Lists the next scheduled run times for verification
Handles complex schedules like "every other Friday" or "first Monday of each month"
Works instantly with zero configuration

Usage Examples

# Simple schedule
npx ai-cron-gen "every day at midnight"

# Complex schedule
npx ai-cron-gen "every weekday at 9am and 5pm"

# Specific pattern
npx ai-cron-gen "first Monday of every month at 10:30am"

Best Practices

Verify with the next runs output - Always check the preview to make sure the schedule is what you wanted
Be specific about time zones - Cron expressions don't include timezone info. Know what zone your server runs in
Test edge cases - Schedules like "every other week" can be tricky. Double-check with the preview
Copy directly into crontab - The output is ready to paste straight into your crontab or scheduler

When to Use This

Setting up a new cron job and can't remember the syntax
Configuring CI/CD scheduled pipelines
Building a task scheduler and need to validate cron expressions
Documenting existing cron jobs in human-readable format

Part of the LXGIC Dev Toolkit

This is one of 110+ free developer tools built by LXGIC Studios. No paywalls, no sign-ups, no API keys on free tiers. Just tools that work.

Find more:

GitHub: https://github.com/LXGIC-Studios
Twitter: https://x.com/lxgicstudios
Substack: https://lxgicstudios.substack.com
Website: https://lxgic.dev

Requirements

No install needed. Just run with npx. Node.js 18+ recommended.

npx ai-cron-gen --help

How It Works

The tool sends your schedule description to an AI model that understands cron syntax and time patterns. It generates the cron expression, explains what it means in plain English, and calculates the next several run times so you can verify the schedule is correct.

License

MIT. Free forever. Use it however you want.

npx skills add thinkfleetai/thinkfleet-engine --skill cron-writer