[BUG] Scheduled triggers execute in UTC, not local timezone — not documented
Status Fixed / completed
Maintainer reply ✓ Yes — ashwin-ant
Activity 5 comments · opened Apr 17, 2026 · closed Apr 18, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (ashwin-ant, collaborator)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
Summary
Cron expressions in Claude Code scheduled triggers are evaluated in UTC, not the user's local timezone. This is not documented anywhere — the trigger creation UI/API doesn't specify a timezone, and the natural assumption is local time.
Steps to reproduce
- Create a scheduled trigger with a cron expression for a specific local time, e.g.
0 9 * * *(intended as 9am local). - On a machine running UTC-5, the trigger fires at 4am local time.
- To fire at 9am local, you must offset:
0 14 * * *.
Expected behavior
One of:
- Cron expressions use the host system's local timezone (preferred), OR
- Docs explicitly state "all cron expressions are UTC" with an offset example
Why this matters
A trigger configured to "run a morning standup at 9am" instead fires at 4am. The failure is silent — the trigger fires, just at the wrong time — so it's hard to diagnose.
Environment
- macOS Darwin 25.4.0
- Timezone: America/Bogota (UTC-5)
- Confirmed via direct testing across multiple trigger schedules
5 Comments
Found 1 possible duplicate issue:
This issue will be automatically closed as a duplicate in 3 days.
🤖 Generated with Claude Code
@adelaidasofia there's text under the cron input saying the time is in UTC. Is that not showing up for you?
<img width="932" height="762" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5eae7cdd-d8f2-40e6-b775-f7edba098bff" />
Thanks for pointing that out. I missed the UTC label under the cron input. Closing this — the documentation exists, I just didn't see it.
cron times still show some ambiguity. it's correct that when creating the schedule it shows that the time will be in utc, but when viewing the routing, it doesn't make it clear that the time is in utc. and right below the schedule times, the Next run time is in my timezone, not utc.
bottom line: it's not a bug per se, but the display could be improved.
oh, and an enhancement would be to support timezone, as mentioned in other issues :).
<img width="572" height="330" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f766f95b-48db-4e6f-9cdf-43bf99e25b91" />
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