Cron on July 1st at Midnight

The cron expression 0 0 1 7 * schedules a task to run once per year on July 1st at exactly midnight (00:00).

Field-by-field breakdown:

• 0 (Minute): At minute 0. The task fires at the top of the hour.
• 0 (Hour): At hour 0 (midnight / 12 AM). The task runs at the very start of July 1st.
• 1 (Day of Month): On the 1st day of the month only.
• 7 (Month): In July only. The month field restricts execution to the seventh month of the year, marking the mid-year point.
• * (Day of Week): Every day of the week. No restriction on the day of the week.

This means your task will execute exactly once per year, at midnight on July 1st. July 1st marks the beginning of the second half of the calendar year and is also the start of the fiscal year for many governments and organizations (including the US federal government, many state governments, and numerous international entities). This makes it an important scheduling point for fiscal-year transitions, mid-year performance reviews, semi-annual report generation, and H2 planning kickoffs. It is also relevant for businesses that operate on a July-June fiscal calendar. This expression is supported by standard cron on Linux/macOS, as well as cloud services like AWS CloudWatch, Google Cloud Scheduler, and GitHub Actions.