Schedule triggers

A schedule trigger starts a flow at times given by a cron expression: every 15 minutes, weekdays at 9:00, the first of the month. The scheduler (EGRET_WORKFLOW__SCHEDULER_ENABLED) evaluates every schedule and creates an execution for each tick that is due.

Add a schedule

Add a trigger of type io.kestra.plugin.core.trigger.Schedule under triggers: and save the flow.

id: nightly-heartbeat
namespace: docs.demo
description: Logs a heartbeat on a schedule.
tasks:
  - id: beat
    type: io.kestra.plugin.core.log.Log
    message: "Heartbeat from {{ flow.id }} at {{ now() | date('HH:mm:ss') }}"
triggers:
  - id: every_minute
    type: io.kestra.plugin.core.trigger.Schedule
    description: Fires once a minute (UTC)
    cron: "* * * * *"
    timezone: UTC

Within a minute the Triggers page shows the trigger with its Next run, and each tick creates an execution whose Trigger is Schedule. This flow logged Heartbeat from nightly-heartbeat at 16:30:00 on every tick.

The screenshot is a run of docs.demo.sales/daily-revenue, whose every_morning schedule fires at 06:00 in Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh; its date variable carries the zone's offset (+07:00).

Properties

Property	What it does	Default
id	The trigger's name, unique in the flow. Changing it starts a new schedule from now.	required
cron	A cron expression: five fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week).	required
withSeconds	true to read a sixth, leading field with seconds precision.	false
timezone	An IANA zone such as Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh.	UTC
recoverMissedSchedules	What to do with ticks missed while the schedule was off: ALL, LAST or NONE.	ALL
inputs	Input values for each run, as a map of plain values.	none
description	Free text.	none
disabled	true switches the trigger off in the YAML.	false

Not supported: when and lateMaximumDelay are refused, and stopAfter, labels and allowConcurrent are accepted and ignored.

Cron expressions

The expressions below were accepted and their next run was computed by a demo instance on 19 October 2026 at about 17:03 UTC.

Expression	Meaning	Next run
*/15 * * * *	Every 15 minutes	17:15
0 9 * * MON-FRI	9:00 on weekdays	20 October 09:00
30 2 1 * *	02:30 on the first of the month	1 November 02:30
0 0 * * 0	Midnight on Sundays	25 October 00:00
@hourly, @daily	Macros	next hour, next midnight
*/10 * * * * * with withSeconds: true	Every 10 seconds	the next tenth second

A bad expression is not rejected when you save. For cron: "60 * * * *" the trigger goes off the queue and the Triggers drawer shows the Last error invalid cron: minutes: value 60 not in range [0, 59]. Fix the flow and save it again.

Time zones

timezone decides what "9:00" means. 0 9 * * * with timezone: Asia/Ho_Chi_Minh ran next at 02:00 UTC. The drawer shows the next run in the trigger's zone and in yours. A few old three-letter zone ids (such as PST or IST) are refused.

Inputs

inputs: takes plain values only. A value with {{ }} in it is not rendered: the trigger stays off the queue with the error inputs.stamp contains template syntax, which a scheduled execution cannot render. Inputs the flow declares and the schedule leaves out use their defaults:.

triggers:
  - id: nightly
    type: io.kestra.plugin.core.trigger.Schedule
    cron: "0 2 * * *"
    inputs:
      label: scheduled

A schedule that omits an input with no default fails the save check schedule_missing_inputs.

Switch a schedule off and on

Use the Enabled switch on the Triggers page or a flow's Triggers tab. While a schedule is off its Missed ticks count grows, up to 1 000 (1000+).

Switch a schedule on again

Switching a schedule on after it missed runs opens Enable trigger:

Choice	What happens
Skip missed runs; start at the next tick	Nothing runs for the gap. The schedule resumes at the next tick. This is selected.
Recover missed runs (7 missed)	Follows the trigger's recoverMissedSchedules: ALL runs every missed tick, one per scheduler pass; LAST runs only the latest; NONE runs none.

The dialog appears only when the schedule was switched off and its next tick has passed. A schedule that is already on, or has missed nothing, switches without asking.

Triggers fire from the saved draft

A schedule fires from the flow's saved draft, with or without a version. In testing, a flow that had been saved and never versioned started its first execution at the next minute. Creating a version does not change what the scheduler runs.

Limits and known issues

• The scheduler fires with up to a second of delay. Last evaluated is the tick that was processed, which can be earlier than when the execution started.
• A schedule's trigger.date is not readable in the flow's tasks. The execution's Overview shows it under Trigger.
• Only one execution per tick is created, and allowConcurrent is ignored: a slow run does not stop the next tick.
• Schedule when conditions and lateMaximumDelay are refused.

Further reading

• Backfill
• Triggers
• Runtime and operations