How Claude converts 'every weekday at 8am' into a cron expression

ReminderIt uses cron expressions to define recurring schedules — strings like '0 8 * * 1-5' that encode 'every weekday at 8am'. When you ask Claude to set a recurring reminder in plain English, it converts your description to the right cron expression before calling the ReminderIt API.

Common patterns and their cron equivalents

Every day at 9am → 0 9 * * *. Every weekday at 8am → 0 8 * * 1-5. Every Monday and Thursday at 6pm → 0 18 * * 1,4. First of every month at noon → 0 12 1 * *. Twice a day at 8am and 8pm → two separate reminders: 0 8 * * * and 0 20 * * *.

What Claude gets right

Day-of-week patterns, twice-daily schedules, and monthly patterns on specific dates are all handled correctly by current Claude models. Timezone is passed separately (as an IANA string) so the cron fires at the right local time across DST changes.

What to verify

Complex patterns like 'every other week' or 'last Thursday of the month' can trip Claude up — cron doesn't natively support biweekly patterns, for example. For these, ask Claude to explain the cron expression it's using before you confirm. For important schedules, trigger a test call to verify the timing is right.