docs: Ofelia requires 6-field cron expressions, not 5 #1

Merged

hamish merged 1 commit from docs/ofelia-6-field-cron into main

2026-05-17 09:05:00 +12:00

hamish commented

2026-05-17 09:04:23 +12:00

Owner

Why

Ofelia uses a 6-field cron parser where the first field is seconds, not a standard 5-field expression. Passing "0 3 * * *" is silently misread as seconds=0, minutes=3, hours=* — which fires every hour at :03 rather than daily at 3am.

This bit us in stack-home where the z2m nightly restart ran 24×/day for weeks before we spotted it in the Ofelia logs.

Change

Added a bullet to the Common gotchas section documenting the correct format and explaining why 5-field expressions fail silently.

"0 0 3 * * *"  ← correct: seconds=0, minutes=0, hours=3 (3am daily)
"0 3 * * *"    ← wrong:   seconds=0, minutes=3, hours=* (every hour at :03)

## Why Ofelia uses a **6-field** cron parser where the first field is seconds, not a standard 5-field expression. Passing `"0 3 * * *"` is silently misread as seconds=0, minutes=3, hours=`*` — which fires **every hour at :03** rather than daily at 3am. This bit us in `stack-home` where the z2m nightly restart ran 24×/day for weeks before we spotted it in the Ofelia logs. ## Change Added a bullet to the **Common gotchas** section documenting the correct format and explaining why 5-field expressions fail silently. ``` "0 0 3 * * *" ← correct: seconds=0, minutes=0, hours=3 (3am daily) "0 3 * * *" ← wrong: seconds=0, minutes=3, hours=* (every hour at :03) ```

hamish added 1 commit

2026-05-17 09:04:23 +12:00

docs: add Ofelia 6-field cron expression gotcha dee2d7eef0

Ofelia uses a 6-field cron parser (seconds first). A 5-field expression
like "0 3 * * *" silently runs every hour at minute 3 instead of daily
at 3am. Document the correct format and a worked example.