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Github Event `schedule` #

Github Action Trigger #

Webhook event payload	Activity types	`GITHUB_SHA`	`GITHUB_REF`
Not applicable	Not applicable	Last commit on default branch	Default branch

Notes:

The schedule event can be delayed during periods of high loads of GitHub Actions workflow runs. High load times include the start of every hour. If the load is sufficiently high enough, some queued jobs may be dropped. To decrease the chance of delay, schedule your workflow to run at a different time of the hour.
In a public repository, scheduled workflows are automatically disabled when no repository activity has occurred in 60 days. For information on re-enabling a disabled workflow, see “Disabling and enabling a workflow.”

The schedule event allows you to trigger a workflow at a scheduled time.

You can schedule a workflow to run at specific UTC times using POSIX cron syntax. Scheduled workflows run on the latest commit on the default or base branch. The shortest interval you can run scheduled workflows is once every 5 minutes.

This example triggers the workflow every day at 5:30 and 17:30 UTC:

on:
  schedule:
    # * is a special character in YAML so you have to quote this string
    - cron:  '30 5,17 * * *'

A single workflow can be triggered by multiple schedule events. You can access the schedule event that triggered the workflow through the github.event.schedule context. This example triggers the workflow to run at 5:30 UTC every Monday-Thursday, but skips the Not on Monday or Wednesday step on Monday and Wednesday.

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '30 5 * * 1,3'
    - cron: '30 5 * * 2,4'

jobs:
  test_schedule:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Not on Monday or Wednesday
        if: github.event.schedule != '30 5 * * 1,3'
        run: echo "This step will be skipped on Monday and Wednesday"
      - name: Every time
        run: echo "This step will always run"

Cron syntax has five fields separated by a space, and each field represents a unit of time.

┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
│ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
│ │ ┌───────────── day of the month (1 - 31)
│ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12 or JAN-DEC)
│ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of the week (0 - 6 or SUN-SAT)
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
* * * * *

You can use these operators in any of the five fields:

Operator	Description	Example
*	Any value	`15 * * * *` runs at every minute 15 of every hour of every day.
,	Value list separator	`2,10 4,5 * * *` runs at minute 2 and 10 of the 4th and 5th hour of every day.
-	Range of values	`30 4-6 * * *` runs at minute 30 of the 4th, 5th, and 6th hour.
/	Step values	`20/15 * * * *` runs every 15 minutes starting from minute 20 through 59 (minutes 20, 35, and 50).

Note: GitHub Actions does not support the non-standard syntax @yearly, @monthly, @weekly, @daily, @hourly, and @reboot.

You can use crontab guru to help generate your cron syntax and confirm what time it will run. To help you get started, there is also a list of crontab guru examples.

Notifications for scheduled workflows are sent to the user who last modified the cron syntax in the workflow file. For more information, see “Notifications for workflow runs.”

Event Payload #

No payload, see Github’s Documentation

Github Event schedule #

Github Action Trigger #

Event Payload #

Github Event `schedule` #