Hourly Schedules

* Scheduling Guide

Hourly schedules balance freshness and system load for tasks that are too time-sensitive for daily runs but do not need per-minute precision. Common use cases include rolling up analytics data, refreshing feed caches, and triggering mid-day report snapshots. The standard expression 0 * * * * runs exactly on the hour; 0 */2 * * * runs every two hours; 0 9-17 * * * runs hourly only during business hours. One subtlety with multi-hour intervals: 0 */3 * * * resets to the next multiple of 3 after midnight, so it fires at 00:00, 03:00, 06:00, not offset from whenever the cron daemon started. This predictable alignment is usually what you want, but be aware of it when coordinating dependent jobs.