Cron expression for Every day at noon
0 12 * * *
Runs once a day at 12:00 (noon).
Next 5 runs (your local time)
These are shown in your browser’s timezone. The job itself runs in the scheduler’s timezone — often UTC — so the real run time can differ.
What people actually schedule with 0 12 * * *
- Lunchtime digest emails (open rates peak around midday)
- Midday price/inventory refresh between morning and evening peaks
- Reminders for afternoon meetings or deadlines
Use 0 12 * * * on your platform
It’s the same 5-field expression everywhere — what changes is where you put it and which timezone it runs in.
Linux / crontab
0 12 * * * /path/to/your-commandRuns in the server’s local timezone — check it with timedatectl.
Full field reference: crontab(5) man page.
GitHub Actions
on:
schedule:
- cron: "0 12 * * *"GitHub Actions always runs scheduled jobs in UTC — there is no timezone setting, and runs can be delayed under load (official docs).
Kubernetes CronJob
spec:
schedule: "0 12 * * *"Defaults to UTC. Set spec.timeZone (Kubernetes 1.27+)
for a specific zone — see the
CronJob docs.
Quartz / Spring @Scheduled
Quartz uses 6 fields (seconds first): 0 0 12 * * *. Watch out:
Quartz day-of-week is 1=SUN … 7=SAT (not 0–6), and day-of-month /
day-of-week use ? — double-check if your schedule touches those fields
(Quartz cron reference).
Gotchas with every day at noon schedules
- Noon UTC is 20:00 in Taipei, 13:00 in London, 07:00 in New York. “Noon” is a marketing decision — set
CRON_TZ(or the platform’s timezone field) explicitly, or your lunch email is someone’s midnight ping. - For user-facing sends, one global noon is the wrong model: batch by recipient timezone (run hourly, send to users whose local time is 12:00) instead of blasting everyone at yours.
Will you know if this job silently fails?
Cron jobs fail quietly — a server reboots, a path changes, or an error code is ignored — and nobody notices until the data is missing. A cron monitor (a dead-man’s-switch) alerts you when a scheduled job does not check in on time.
Monitor your cron jobs with UptimeRobot →
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Is 0 12 * * * the right schedule?
Start-of-workday delivery wants 9am. Pure data jobs don’t care about lunch — give them midnight (or 3am) instead.
Or use the interactive cron generator & explainer, read the complete cron syntax guide, or pick another common schedule: