Cron 5-Field vs 6-Field — Standard vs Extended Format
Quick Answer: Standard cron uses 5 fields: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week. Extended (6-field) adds seconds as the first field. AWS EventBridge adds year as the sixth field. Spring uses seconds-first 6-field. Know your platform format to avoid scheduling bugs.
Cron Expression
* * * * *
Plain English
every minute, of every hour
Next 5 Run Times
4/12/2026, 3:54:00 PM
4/12/2026, 3:55:00 PM
4/12/2026, 3:56:00 PM
4/12/2026, 3:57:00 PM
4/12/2026, 3:58:00 PM
FAQ
Which platforms use 5-field cron?
Unix/Linux crontab, GitHub Actions, Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Kubernetes CronJobs, and most standard scheduling systems.
Which platforms use 6-field cron?
Spring @Scheduled (seconds first), node-cron (optional seconds), Quartz (seconds first), and AWS EventBridge (year last). Always check your platform documentation.