HTTPfy

Every 3 minutes

At minute 0, 3, 6, ... 57 of every hour: 20 runs an hour.

*/3 * * * * Open in Crontab Generator
175,200runs in the next 365 days
3,360runs per week
3 minbetween every run
02:27next run, Wed 11 Nov UTC

What it is used for

Watchdogs and queue consumers that need to react within a few minutes.

Field by field

FieldValueMatches
Minute*/320 values: 0, 3, ... 57
Hour*every value
Day of month*every value
Month*every value
Day of week*every value
 
*/3 * * * * /path/to/job

Next 10 run times

Computed when this page loaded (2026-11-11 02:24 UTC), assuming the scheduler runs in UTC.

#UTCYour local time
1Wed 2026-11-11 02:27
2Wed 2026-11-11 02:30
3Wed 2026-11-11 02:33
4Wed 2026-11-11 02:36
5Wed 2026-11-11 02:39
6Wed 2026-11-11 02:42
7Wed 2026-11-11 02:45
8Wed 2026-11-11 02:48
9Wed 2026-11-11 02:51
10Wed 2026-11-11 02:54

Things to watch with this schedule

  • 3 divides 60, so the spacing stays at exactly 3 minutes across the hour boundary.

Kubernetes CronJob

Kubernetes uses the same five fields. Set spec.timeZone (stable since Kubernetes 1.27), otherwise the schedule follows the time zone of kube-controller-manager.

apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: every-3-minutes
spec:
  schedule: "*/3 * * * *"
  timeZone: "Etc/UTC"
  concurrencyPolicy: Forbid
  startingDeadlineSeconds: 300
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          restartPolicy: OnFailure
          containers:
            - name: job
              image: debian:bookworm-slim
              command: ["/bin/sh", "-c", "/app/run-job.sh"]

GitHub Actions

Workflow schedules use five-field cron in UTC and run only from the default branch. GitHub's shortest interval is 5 minutes, so runs closer together than that are not honoured; this schedule will fire less often than written. Runs at minute 0 are the most likely to be delayed or dropped when GitHub is busy; an odd minute such as 7 or 23 starts more reliably.

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '*/3 * * * *'   # UTC

jobs:
  run:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: ./run-job.sh

systemd timer

The equivalent OnCalendar= value is *-*-* *:00/3:00. Check it with systemd-analyze calendar '*-*-* *:00/3:00', which prints the next elapse time. Persistent=true runs a missed job after downtime, which classic cron never does.

[Unit]
Description=Every 3 minutes

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* *:00/3:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

AWS EventBridge

EventBridge rules take six fields (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week, year) in UTC; EventBridge Scheduler can use a time zone. One of day-of-month and day-of-week must be ?, and day-of-week runs 1-7 from Sunday, so names are used here.

cron(0/3 * * * ? *)

Quartz Scheduler (Java)

Quartz adds a leading seconds field and needs ? in either day field; days of the week are 1 (SUN) to 7 (SAT).

0 0/3 * * * ?

Spring's @Scheduled(cron = ...) also uses six fields, but numbers days of the week 0-7 with Sunday as 0 or 7, like Unix cron; the names shown above work in both.

Related schedules