Free Cron Job Scheduler built with Node.js and Typescript

I'm excited to share a lightweight, open-source cron job scheduler I built using Node.js and TypeScript. It’s designed for developers who need a fast, modular way to schedule HTTP tasks without reinventing the wheel. Best of all — it's completely free and easy to self-host.

👉 Check it out on GitHub — if you find it useful, a ⭐ is always appreciated!

👉 Deploy on Railway — deploy my template in 3 clicks 🚀

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Why I Built This Cron Job Utility

In nearly every project I’ve worked on, I needed a way to schedule recurring tasks — whether it was generating reports every Monday, sending emails monthly, or cleaning up stale data. I kept writing the same cron job configurations over and over again.

Instead of duplicating boilerplate across projects, I decided to build a reusable, configurable, and easy-to-integrate cron job scheduler that works out of the box.

How It Works

This scheduler uses the node-cron library and reads job definitions from environment variables. Each job can be configured to send an HTTP request like GET, POST, etc. to a specified endpoint, with optional parameters.

Key Features

Configure jobs with simple environment variables
Supports all the HTTP methods (GET, POST, etc)
Optional parameters for secure task execution
Docker-ready for easy deployment
Open-source and free to use

Common Use Cases

If your application exposes public or internal API routes, you can use this cron job scheduler to automate tasks like:

Database backups
API health checks
Cache invalidation
Report generation
Email or newsletter dispatch
Background cleanups
Triggering task queues

How to set up cron jobs?

Jobs are configured using environment variables in the following format:

JOB{n}="schedule::method::url::prop1=value1::prop2=value2"

Where:

{n}: Job number (1, 2, 3, etc.)
schedule: Cron schedule expression
method: HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH)
url: Target URL
prop{n}=value{n}: Optional properties for request body

Fields are separated by :: (double colon).

Also, there are two additional optional variables that you can set: TIMEZONE and RUN_ON_START.

Configuration example

.env

TIMEZONE="UTC"
RUN_ON_START="false"

JOB1="* * * * *::GET::https://example.com/api/"
JOB2="*/2 * * * *::POST::https://example.com/api/::prop1=value1::prop2=value2"

This configuration schedules two cron jobs:

One that runs every minute and sends a GET request
Another that runs every 2 minutes and sends a POST request with payload

Integrating with Your App

Let’s say you want to automate database backups. You can:

Write the backup logic in your existing codebase.
Expose it via a secure API endpoint (e.g. /api/backup).
Deploy the scheduler and configure a cron job to hit that endpoint.

To prevent unauthorized access, use POST requests with secret tokens or auth headers. For example, include an AUTH_SECRET parameter that your server validates.

.env

JOB3="0 0 * * *::POST::https://yourdomain.com/api/backup::auth=YOUR_SECRET"

This ensures only your cron job scheduler can trigger sensitive operations.

Try It Out

I'm already using this scheduler across multiple of my projects. It's a flexible and simple tool that gets the job done — especially when you just need a simple cron job solution that’s developer-friendly.

You can deploy it in seconds using my Railway template:

👉 Deploy on Railway

If you find this tool helpful, I’d love your feedback. Contributions, issues, or even a quick star on GitHub help the project grow. Thanks for checking it out!

I built a Free Cron Job Scheduler with Node.js + Typescript