The cron expression for 'every 5 minutes' is `*/5 * * * *` - runs at minutes 0, 5, 10, 15... up to 55, every hour, every day. Common variations: every 5 minutes during business hours (`*/5 9-17 * * 1-5`), every 5 minutes except Sundays (`*/5 * * * 1-6`), or every 5 minutes starting at minute 2 (`2-59/5 * * * *`).
When to use this
Use for: health checks on external services, polling a queue / event source, recurring metric collection, frequent backup / sync jobs, monitoring scripts that need fast detection of changes (but not so fast they spam resources).
Frequently Asked Questions
Is `*/5 * * * *` safe to run all day?
It runs 288 times per day. If your job is lightweight (HTTP health check, file existence check), that's fine. If it's heavy (full DB scan, large download), 288 runs/day adds up - prefer hourly or use a more event-driven approach like webhooks or message queues.
How do I run every 5 minutes but only between 9 AM and 6 PM?
Use `*/5 9-17 * * *`. Cron applies AND between fields - so this means minute matches `*/5` AND hour matches `9-17` AND day is `*` AND month is `*` AND day-of-week is `*`.
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