Explain a cron expression

What the schedule means in English, and the next few times it will actually fire.

Expression

Five fields: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.

Options

Count

How many upcoming runs to list.

1 to 50

After

1 credit

Needs Expression.

What it does

Also called: explain a cron expression · what does this cron schedule mean · translate cron to english.

Use it from your own code

The same endpoint this page calls — no daily cap, 1 credit a call either way.

POST /v1/core/cron-describe

curl -X POST "$DOATHING_API/v1/core/cron-describe" \
  -H "x-api-key: $DOATHING_KEY" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"expression": "0 9 * * 1-5", "after": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"}'

What the schedule means in English, and the next few times it will actually fire.

Describe a cron expression in plain English and list its next N firing times in a given time zone.

Response

The result carries your remaining balance alongside it, so you can track spend without a second call.

{
  "description": "At 09:00, on monday-5.",
  "next_runs": [
    "2026-01-01T09:00:00+00:00"
  ],
  "timezone": "UTC",
  "request_id": "37f01edb-0163-42a1-ac51-0acaef979800",
  "credits_remaining": 96
}

Cost

1 credit per call, whether it is run from the site or from the API — the credential differs, the price does not. A new account starts with 20 credits.

A rejected request still costs a credit: the authorizer decrements before the tool validates. A call rejected for a missing or invalid key is free.

Parameters

Generated from the endpoint’s own validation, so this is exactly what it accepts. A body field goes at the top level; an option goes inside options.

Name	In	Type	Default	Notes
expression *	body	string	—	Five fields: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week.
after	body	string (ISO 8601)	—
count	options	integer	5	How many upcoming runs to list. 1 to 50