# Cron Expression Explainer

> Cron Expression Explainer is a paid API for AI agents from x402-canary.nicolas-x402-16f380a7.workers.dev, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-09-15).

Parses and explains a cron expression in plain English, returning a human-readable summary of its schedule.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://x402-canary.nicolas-x402-16f380a7.workers.dev/v1/cron/explain
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-09-15
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/cron-expression-explainer-2dc86110
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_Xk13by_iduVHZAXuO0IaL

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability cron-expression-explainer-2dc86110 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you explain what this cron expression means in plain English: '0 9 * * 1-5'?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when an AI coding agent or developer needs a quick, deterministic plain-English explanation of a cron expression without building or maintaining their own parser. It is ideal for pipelines that encounter cron strings in config files, CI/CD YAML, or user-submitted job definitions and need to surface human-readable schedule descriptions. Prefer it over general LLM interpretation when you want a structured, engine-verified output rather than a probabilistic natural language guess.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid or malformed cron expression returns an error or empty summary
- Missing 'expression' field in request body causes a validation error
- Expressions with non-standard syntax (e.g. @reboot, @yearly macros) may not be supported
- Network/worker errors on the Cloudflare Worker may return 5xx responses

## How this service works

Free need-to-tool routing plus pay-per-call npm docs and TypeScript API signatures, npm breaking-change diffs, JavaScript-rendered browser snapshots and deterministic coding-agent checks via AgentCash/x402.

## Output

Returns a JSON object with a 'data.summary' field containing a plain-English description of when the cron expression triggers (e.g. 'every minute; hour=9'), plus a 'meta.engine' field identifying the parsing engine used ('cron').

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "properties": {
  "expression": {
   "type": "string"
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "data": {
   "summary": "every minute; hour=9"
  },
  "meta": {
   "engine": "cron"
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/cron-expression-explainer-2dc86110/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from x402-canary.nicolas-x402-16f380a7.workers.dev](https://www.zero.xyz/host/x402-canary.nicolas-x402-16f380a7.workers.dev/llms.txt)