cron-explain

Translate a cron expression into plain English and compute its next run times — all locally. Zero dependencies.

cronstrue explains but is a library, not a CLI, and doesn't tell you when the job actually runs next. cron-explain does both in one command.

Install

npm install -g cron-explain

Or without installing:

npx cron-explain "0 9 * * 1-5"

Usage

cron-explain "*/15 * * * *"          # Every 15 minutes
cron-explain "0 9 * * 1-5"           # 9am on weekdays
cron-explain "0 0 1 * *" --next 3    # Monthly — show next 3 runs
cron-explain "@daily"                # Macros
cron-explain "30 14 * * mon" --utc   # Evaluate in UTC
cron-explain "0 9 * * 1-5" --no-next # Explanation only

Example Output

cron-explain  0 9 * * 1-5

  At 09:00, on weekdays (Mon–Fri).

  Next 5 runs  (local time)
    ▸ Mon 2026-06-01 09:00  in 2d
    ▸ Tue 2026-06-02 09:00  in 3d
    ▸ Wed 2026-06-03 09:00  in 4d
    ▸ Thu 2026-06-04 09:00  in 5d
    ▸ Fri 2026-06-05 09:00  in 6d

Supported Syntax

| Feature | Example | |---|---| | Standard 5-field | 0 9 * * 1-5 | | Steps | */15 * * * * | | Ranges | 0 9-17 * * * | | Lists | 0 0,12 * * * | | Month names | 0 0 1 jan,jul * | | Weekday names | 30 9 * * mon-fri | | Macros | @daily @hourly @weekly @monthly @yearly @midnight |

Field order: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

The Day-of-Month / Day-of-Week Quirk

Cron has a well-known gotcha: when both the day-of-month and day-of-week fields are restricted (neither is *), the job runs when either matches — not both. cron-explain honors this in both the English description ("on day-of-month 1 or on Monday") and the computed run times.

Options

| Flag | Description | |---|---| | -n, --next <N> | Number of upcoming runs to show (default: 5, max: 50) | | --utc | Evaluate run times in UTC instead of local time | | --no-next | Print only the English explanation | | --json | Machine-readable output |

License

MIT

Keywords

cron expression · explain cron · crontab · cron next run · cronstrue alternative · cron parser · human readable cron · schedule · zero dependencies · cli

Built to solve, shared to help — Rushabh Shah 🛠️✨

One of 40+ zero-dependency developer CLI tools — no node_modules, ever.