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lazy-cron

A fast, keyboard-driven terminal UI for managing cron jobs on Linux.

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Why lazy-cron?

Cron syntax is powerful but unintuitive. You shouldn't need to memorize that 0 9 * * 1-5 means "weekdays at 9am" or google what the fifth field does. lazy-cron gives you a visual, interactive scheduler right in your terminal — with live human-readable descriptions, vim-style navigation, and zero config required.

 lazy-cron  v0.1.0   [/] filter:all

 #    S  SRC      SCHEDULE               COMMAND                              NEXT RUN
 1    *  user     */5 * * * *            /usr/bin/backup.sh                   3m 12s
 2    *  user     @daily                 /home/user/cleanup.sh                18h 4m
 3    -  user     0 12 * * *             /usr/bin/notify.sh                   disabled
 4    *  system   17 *  * * *            cd / && run-parts --report ...       43m 0s

 a add  e edit  d del  space toggle  ? help  q quit

Screenshots:

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Features

Job management

• List all cron jobs: user crontab + /etc/crontab + /etc/cron.d/*
• Add, edit, delete user cron jobs
• Enable/disable individual jobs with a single keypress
• Shows next scheduled run time for every job

Visual schedule builder

• Five interactive columns: MINUTE, HOUR, DAY, MONTH, WEEKDAY — each color-coded
• Four modes per field: all (*), every (*/n), at (specific value), range (n-m)
• Press m to cycle modes, j/k to scroll values, h/l to move between fields
• Live human-readable description: "At 09:30, on weekdays (Mon-Fri)"

Raw mode

• Toggle between visual builder and raw text input with ctrl+e
• Schedule presets in both modes with ctrl+p

Navigation

• Vim-style keys throughout (j/k, g/G, h/l)
• Filter by source or status: all, user, system, enabled, disabled

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Installation

One-liner (recommended)

Works on Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, and any Linux distro. Auto-detects your system and installs the right package format.

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/domenez-dev/lazy-cron/main/install.sh)"

Arch Linux (AUR) (Soon..)

Download a package manually

Grab the latest .deb, .rpm, or binary archive from the releases page.

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i lazy-cron_*.deb

# Fedora / RHEL / CentOS / openSUSE
sudo rpm -i lazy-cron-*.rpm

From source

Requires Go 1.21+.

git clone https://github.com/domenez-dev/lazy-cron.git
cd lazy-cron
make install    # builds and installs to /usr/local/bin

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Usage

lazy-cron

Run with sudo to also edit system cron jobs in /etc/crontab and /etc/cron.d/:

sudo lazy-cron

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Keybindings

Main list

Key	Action
j / k	Move down / up
g / G	Jump to top / bottom
a	Add new cron job
e	Edit selected job
d	Delete selected job
space / t	Toggle enable/disable
r	Reload from disk
/	Cycle filter
?	Toggle help panel
q	Quit

Schedule builder

Key	Action
h / l or ← / →	Previous / next field
j / k or ↓ / ↑	Scroll options in current field
m	Cycle mode (all, every, at, range)
ctrl+e	Toggle raw text input
ctrl+p	Cycle schedule presets
tab	Jump to command field
ctrl+s	Save
esc	Cancel

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Schedule description examples

Expression	Description
*/5 * * * *	Every 5 minutes
0 10 * * *	At 10:00
0 0 * * *	At midnight (00:00)
30 9 * * 5	At 09:30, on Fridays
0 9-17 * * 1-5	From 09:00 to 17:00, on weekdays (Mon-Fri)
0 0 * 1 *	At midnight (00:00), in January
@reboot	At system startup
@daily	Once a day at midnight

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Notes

• Only user cron jobs can be added/edited/deleted without root.
• System jobs in /etc/crontab and /etc/cron.d/ are read-only unless you run with sudo.
• Writes go through crontab -l / crontab -, so existing comments, env vars, and formatting are preserved.

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

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License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2024 domenez-dev