Schedules

Schedule presets, custom cron expressions, timezones, next-run behavior, and how Trigger Now interacts with the schedule.

A Schedule automation fires on a cron cadence in the timezone you choose; this page covers the picker, the cron rules, and what happens around each firing.

Presets

The Schedule picker offers four presets and a custom mode. Every preset builds a standard cron expression for you.

Preset	Runs	Controls
Every hour	Once per hour at the top of the hour	None
Daily	Once per day at the chosen hour	Hour picker (12-hour, AM/PM)
Weekly	Once per week on the chosen day and hour	Day of week (Monday to Sunday) and hour picker
Monthly	Once per month on the chosen day and hour	Day of month (1st to 28th) and hour picker
Custom	Any valid 5-field cron expression	Text input with live validation

Below the controls the picker shows a plain-language description of the schedule and a Next run preview computed in the selected timezone. A new schedule automation defaults to 0 9 * * * (daily at 9:00 AM).

Custom cron expressions

Custom expressions use the standard five fields:

minute  hour  day-of-month  month  day-of-week

Expression	Meaning
`/15 * * *`	Every 15 minutes
`0 9 * * *`	Daily at 9:00 AM
`30 14 * * 1-5`	Weekdays at 2:30 PM
`0 9 * * 1`	Mondays at 9:00 AM
`0 0 1 * *`	First of every month at midnight

Rules enforced when you save:

15-minute minimum. Expressions that fire more often than every 15 minutes, such as */5 * * * *, are rejected with "Schedule interval must be at least 15 minutes". The check looks at the shortest gap between consecutive firings, so 0,1 * * * * is rejected too.
Five fields only. Six-field expressions with a seconds column are not supported. The picker shows "Invalid cron expression. Use 5-field format (minute hour day month weekday)."
The Create Automation and Save Changes buttons stay disabled while the expression is invalid.

Timezone

The Timezone field defaults to your browser's timezone when you create an automation. A "Common" group lists UTC and a dozen major zones; "All Timezones" lists every IANA zone and is searchable. The schedule is evaluated in this zone, so "9:00" means 9:00 local time there, including across daylight-saving changes.

Next-run recalculation

An automation detail page showing the configuration: trigger schedule, timezone, agent, model, reasoning, next run, and instructions — An automation detail page. The schedule, timezone, and next run are shown under Configuration, above the run history.

Saving a change to the schedule or timezone recalculates the next run automatically.
Resume on a paused schedule automation computes the next run from the current moment rather than catching up on missed slots.
A schedule slot that comes due while a previous run is still active is skipped (see below) and the schedule advances to the following slot.

Trigger Now

Trigger Now on the detail page starts a one-off run immediately across the automation's full repository and environment selection.

It does not move the next scheduled run; the cron cadence stays fixed.
It is rejected with "A run is already active for this automation" when a run is in progress. Nothing is recorded for the rejected attempt.
It works while the automation is paused, so you can verify a fix before resuming. A successful manual run resets the consecutive-failure counter without resuming the automation; a failed one counts toward auto-pause like any other run.
It runs under the authority and identity of the person who clicked it, not the automation's owner.

One active run at a time

For scheduled and manual firings, only one run per automation can be active. When the schedule comes due during an active run, the firing is recorded in Run History as Skipped with the note "Skipped because a previous run is still active". Skipped firings never count toward auto-pause.

Event-driven triggers use per-event concurrency keys instead; see each trigger's page.

Multi-repository schedules

Schedule triggers are the only trigger type that accepts more than one target. Select up to 10 repositories and environments combined, and every firing fans out into one session per target, all launched concurrently. See Multi-repository automations.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
"Schedule interval must be at least 15 minutes"	The expression fires more often than every 15 minutes, or its shortest gap is under 15 minutes	Use `*/15` or a slower cadence
The expression is rejected as invalid	It has six fields (seconds) or a syntax error	Use five fields; the placeholder `0 9 * * 1-5` shows the format
The next run is not when you expected	The timezone is set to a different zone than you assumed	Check the Timezone field; the Next run preview shows the resolved time
A firing shows as Skipped	The previous run was still active when the slot came due	Shorten the work per run, lengthen the interval, or check whether the earlier run is stuck via View session