cron-jobs

name	cron-jobs
description	Scheduled task patterns — Vercel Cron, node-cron, BullMQ schedulers, Inngest scheduled functions, and crontab syntax
layer	utility
category	backend
triggers	["cron job","scheduled task","cron schedule","recurring job","periodic task","vercel cron","background scheduler","crontab"]
inputs	["Task to schedule (function, endpoint, script)","Schedule frequency and timing","Infrastructure (Vercel, self-hosted, serverless)"]
outputs	["Cron configuration (vercel.json, crontab, or code-based)","Job handler with idempotency and error handling","Monitoring and retry strategy"]
linksTo	["vercel","message-queues","monitoring","nodejs"]
linkedFrom	["ship","optimize","vercel"]
preferredNextSkills	["monitoring","message-queues"]
fallbackSkills	["nodejs"]
riskLevel	low
memoryReadPolicy	selective
memoryWritePolicy	none
sideEffects	["Modifies vercel.json or system crontab","Creates scheduled job entries in external services"]

Cron Jobs Skill

Purpose

Implement scheduled and recurring tasks across different runtimes: Vercel Cron for serverless, node-cron for long-running servers, BullMQ for Redis-backed job queues, and Inngest for event-driven scheduling. Includes crontab syntax reference.

Crontab Syntax Reference

 ┌─────────── minute (0-59)
 │ ┌─────────── hour (0-23)
 │ │ ┌─────────── day of month (1-31)
 │ │ │ ┌─────────── month (1-12)
 │ │ │ │ ┌─────────── day of week (0-6, Sun=0)
 │ │ │ │ │
 * * * * *

Common patterns:
  */5 * * * *      Every 5 minutes
  0 * * * *        Every hour (on the hour)
  0 */6 * * *      Every 6 hours
  0 0 * * *        Daily at midnight
  0 9 * * 1-5      Weekdays at 9 AM
  0 0 1 * *        First day of each month
  0 0 * * 0        Every Sunday at midnight

Vercel Cron

// vercel.json
{
  "crons": [
    { "path": "/api/cron/cleanup", "schedule": "0 3 * * *" },
    { "path": "/api/cron/digest", "schedule": "0 9 * * 1" },
    { "path": "/api/cron/sync", "schedule": "*/15 * * * *" }
  ]
}

// app/api/cron/cleanup/route.ts
import { NextRequest }  ;

   () {
  
   (request..() !== ) {
     .({ :  }, { :  });
  }

   startTime = .();
   {
     deleted =  db..({
      : { : { :  () } },
    });
     duration = .() - startTime;
    .();
     .({ : , : deleted., duration });
  }  (error) {
    .(, error);
     .({ :  }, { :  });
  }
}