# Cron Expression Parser

> Cron Expression Parser is a paid API for AI agents from api.24klabs.ai, paid per call via x402, $0.002/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-11).

Parses a 5/6-field cron expression or @macro into a plain-English summary, per-field breakdown, and the next N scheduled run times from a given base time and UTC offset.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://api.24klabs.ai/api/v1/cron-parser?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.002/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-11
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/cron-expression-parser-b0ad4394
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_l2n4rxFI8dFXKdCpzXYTB

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-parser-b0ad4394 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: Can you parse the cron expression '0 9 * * 1-5' for me, explain what it means in plain English with a per-field breakdown, and show the next 5 run times starting from now at UTC+2?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need to explain, validate, or compute the schedule of a cron expression or standard @macro (like @daily, @weekly) and want both a human-readable summary and concrete future run timestamps. Prefer this over a generic date/time library when you need the full package — per-field breakdown plus next-N-times — without writing your own parser, especially in agent workflows where the result needs to be surfaced to non-technical users.

## Known failure modes

- Invalid cron expression syntax returns a parse error
- Unsupported field count (e.g. 4-field or 7-field expressions) may fail
- Unrecognized @macro names return an error
- Invalid UTC offset format causes a bad request
- Requesting an excessively large N may be rejected or rate-limited

## How this service works

Parse a 5/6-field cron expression or @macro: plain-English summary, per-field breakdown, and the next N run times from a base time in any UTC offset.

## Output

Returns a plain-English description of the schedule, a per-field breakdown of the cron expression (minute, hour, day-of-month, month, day-of-week, and optionally seconds), and a list of the next N concrete datetime timestamps when the job will fire, calculated from the specified base time and UTC offset.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

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

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "next_runs": [
   "..."
  ],
  "description": "every 15 minutes ..."
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/cron-expression-parser-b0ad4394/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from api.24klabs.ai](https://www.zero.xyz/host/api.24klabs.ai/llms.txt)