@inputcn/cron

Cron in, plain English and the next runs out.

Live demo · The contract · All 11 components

Describes the expression in English and previews the next few runs, so a five-field string stops being a guess. An expression that is already equivalent is never rewritten — 1-5 stays 1-5 rather than becoming 1,2,3,4,5 the moment the field mounts.

Install

Recommended — copy the component source into your project, the way shadcn/ui does:

npx shadcn@latest add https://input-cn.vercel.app/r/cron-input.json

Or install the package and import it directly:

npm i @inputcn/cron

[!NOTE] Either way, import the stylesheet once in your app root:

import "@inputcn/core/styles.css"

Every colour and radius resolves from the shadcn CSS variables you already define, so it matches your theme with no configuration.

Usage

<CronInput
  label="Schedule"
  value={cron}         // "0 9 * * 1-5"
  onChange={setCron}
  minInterval="5m"
  layout="builder"     // or "expression"
  showUpcoming
/>

[!IMPORTANT] onChange emits the canonical value, never the formatted string.

| Type | Form | Example | |---|---|---| | string | expression | "0 9 * * 1-5" |

Pass name and a hidden input carries that value, so FormData and Server Actions receive it too — with no client component.

What makes it different

• Human description. “At 09:00, Monday to Friday.”
• Catches the accident. minInterval is what stops * * * * * reaching production.
• Builder layout. Frequency, time and day toggles, for people who do not write cron.

Validation

Rules are props. No schema, no resolver, no onBlur handler. Errors stay silent until the first blur, then clear the moment the value becomes valid.

| Prop | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | minInterval? | IntervalBound | Reject schedules that fire more often than this. The constraint that earns its keep — it stops someone scheduling a job every second and taking down a worker queue. |

Every error element carries a data-rule attribute naming the rule that failed, so tests assert the rule rather than the sentence.

A matching Zod schema ships from a separate entry point, so Zod never enters your component bundle:

import { cronSchema } from "@inputcn/cron/schema"

Props

| Prop | Type | Description | |---|---|---| | previewCount? | number | How many upcoming runs to compute for the preview. Default 3. | | label? | ReactNode | Visible label. Supply this or aria-label — a field with neither has no accessible name. | | hint? | ReactNode | Helper text under the field. Replaced by the error message while one is showing. | | layout? | CronLayout | expression for engineers, builder for everyone else. | | showDescription? | boolean | Show the plain-English reading. Default true. | | showUpcoming? | boolean | Show upcoming run times. Default true. |

Plus the 23 props every inputcn component implements identically — value, onChange, name, required, variant, size and the rest. See the props contract.

Accessibility

Keyboard complete, labelled, and errors announced once through role="alert" rather than on every keystroke. 50 axe-core checks run on every commit.

[!CAUTION] Screen readers have not been verified yet. Until they are, this library is structurally accessible, not screen-reader verified. The full audit, including what is untested and why, is in ACCESSIBILITY.md.

Part of inputcn — the inputs shadcn/ui doesn't ship. Not affiliated with or endorsed by shadcn.