Cron Tools

What Cron Tools MCP server does

Cron Tools MCP server provides agent-accessible utilities for working with standard five-field cron expressions. It covers four related tasks: parsing an expression into its schedule components, explaining what the expression means, checking whether the expression is valid, and listing its next scheduled runs.

The scheduling operation accepts a time zone, allowing upcoming executions to be interpreted in a specified regional context rather than relying only on the machine's local setting. This is useful when reviewing deployment jobs, maintenance tasks, CI schedules, or other recurring commands that operate across time zones.

How it works

The package communicates with an MCP client through standard input and output. The repository describes its servers as TypeScript applications built with the official Model Context Protocol SDK. Inputs are checked with Zod, and the servers place bounds on input size and execution time.

Cron Tools does not act as a scheduler or start jobs. Its role is to analyze an expression and return structured results to the connected client. An agent can use those results to explain a schedule, identify invalid syntax, or show the next occurrences before a human adds the expression to a real cron system.

Setup and configuration

The repository publishes a versioned container image for this package. A Docker-based MCP registration uses:

claude mcp add cron-tools -- docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/basitalisandhu/mcp-cron-tools:0.2.1

The image speaks stdio, so the interactive input flag is required and no port needs to be exposed. Pinning the image version avoids silently running a later published build. Images are available for Linux amd64 and arm64 and run as the non-root node user.

You can also build from the repository with Node 20 or newer:

npm install
npm run build
claude mcp add cron-tools -- node "$PWD/packages/cron-tools/dist/index.js"

The package is available through GitHub Packages as @basitalisandhu/mcp-cron-tools@0.2.1. Installing from that registry requires configuring the @basitalisandhu npm scope and providing a GITHUB_TOKEN with the read:packages scope. The package is not published on npmjs.com.

Tools and capabilities

Cron Tools MCP server supports:

• Parsing five-field cron syntax into its component fields.
• Producing a human-readable explanation of a schedule.
• Validating whether an expression is acceptable.
• Listing upcoming runs using a supplied time zone.

The repository includes Node test suites for its tools. Its servers send no telemetry, according to the project documentation.

Limitations and notes

The supported format is five-field cron. The supplied material does not document support for seconds, six-field formats, named scheduler extensions, or special tokens, so those should not be assumed. The package evaluates schedules but does not execute commands, persist jobs, or replace a system cron daemon.

The server is intended for MCP clients that can launch stdio processes. When run in a container, it does not need local files or a mounted project directory for the documented cron operations.