Daily
0 9,17 * * *
Run at 09:00 and 17:00 every day.
This preview is live: the table below shows the actual next run times for 0 9,17 * * * in your time zone, recomputed in your browser. Change the expression, dialect, or zone to experiment, then copy the result.
What 0 9,17 * * * means
0 9,17 * * * uses a list in the hour field, 9,17, to fire at both 9am and 5pm, bracketing the working day with a morning and an end-of-day run. Lists let you express uneven gaps that the */n step form cannot.
This start-and-end-of-day rhythm is extremely common: a morning report when people arrive and a wrap-up when they leave. The eight-hour and sixteen-hour gaps are deliberately asymmetric, which is exactly why a comma list, not a step, is the right tool.
Field-by-field breakdown
Unix cron has five fields. Here is what each one is doing in this expression:
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Minute | 0 | minute = 0 |
| Hour | 9,17 | the specific values 9,17 of hour |
| Day of month | * | every day-of-month |
| Month | * | every month |
| Day of week | * | every day-of-week |
Twice a day at 9am and 5pm in every scheduler
The same cadence written for the seven cron dialects you are most likely to meet. Copy the line for the system you target, the field count and day-of-week numbering differ between them.
| Scheduler | Expression | Copy |
|---|---|---|
| Unix / crontab | 0 9,17 * * * | |
| GitHub Actions | 0 9,17 * * * | |
| Kubernetes CronJob | 0 9,17 * * * | |
| Vercel Cron | 0 9,17 * * * | |
| Quartz | 0 0 9,17 * * * * | |
| Spring | 0 0 9,17 * * * | |
| AWS EventBridge | 0 9,17 * * * * |
When you would use 0 9,17 * * *
- A morning briefing and an end-of-day summary from one job.
- Opening and closing reconciliation passes.
- Twice-daily syncs aligned to the start and end of business.
The gotcha worth knowing
You cannot write this with */8, that would fire at 0, 8, 16, not 9 and 17. Asymmetric times always need an explicit list.
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0 9,17 * * * FAQ
What does the cron expression 0 9,17 * * * mean?
0 9,17 * * * means: Run at 09:00 and 17:00 every day. 0 9,17 * * * uses a list in the hour field, 9,17, to fire at both 9am and 5pm, bracketing the working day with a morning and an end-of-day run. Lists let you express uneven gaps that the */n step form cannot.
How do I write "twice a day at 9am and 5pm" in GitHub Actions?
Use 0 9,17 * * * in the schedule's cron field. You cannot write this with */8, that would fire at 0, 8, 16, not 9 and 17. Asymmetric times always need an explicit list.
How do I write "twice a day at 9am and 5pm" for AWS EventBridge?
EventBridge uses six fields with a required year and a ? placeholder in one day field: 0 9,17 * * * *. Wrap it as cron(0 9,17 * * * *) in the console or CloudFormation.
What is the Quartz equivalent of 0 9,17 * * *?
Quartz is seconds-first with a trailing year, so the equivalent is 0 0 9,17 * * * *. Remember Quartz numbers Sunday as 1, the opposite of Unix.
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Browse the full set of cron pattern pages, or jump to the interactive tools: the cron expression builder for designing a schedule from scratch, the cron cheat sheet for a side-by-side reference, the cron timezone translator for moving a schedule between zones and dialects, and the GitHub Actions cron picker for DST-stable CI schedules.