cron

cron is a time-based job scheduler used on Unix-like operating systems such as Unix, Linux and macOS. It runs continuously in the background and executes commands or scripts according to schedules listed in configuration files called crontabs. Each schedule is written as a cron expression with five fields for minute, hour, day of month, month and day of week.

It is commonly used to automate recurring tasks such as backups, log cleanup and report generation. Cron expressions have also become a standard way to define schedules in cloud services, workflow automation tools and the scheduled-run features of AI agent platforms, which are often simply called cron or cron jobs.

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