AWS Python Scheduled Cron Example

This is an example of creating a function that runs as a cron job using the serverless schedule event. For more information on schedule event check out the Serverless docs on schedule.

Schedule events use the rate or cron syntax.

Rate syntax

rate(value unit)

value - A positive number

unit - The unit of time. ( minute | minutes | hour | hours | day | days )

Example rate(5 minutes)

For more information on the rate syntax see the AWS docs

Cron syntax

cron(Minutes Hours Day-of-month Month Day-of-week Year)

All fields are required and time zone is UTC only.

Field	Values	Wildcards
Minutes	0-59	, - * /
Hours	0-23	, - * /
Day-of-month	1-31	, - * ? / L W
Month	1-12 or JAN-DEC	, - * /
Day-of-week	1-7 or SUN-SAT	, - * ? / L #
Year	192199	, - * /

Read the AWS cron expression syntax docs for more info on how to setup cron

Deploy

In order to deploy the endpoint you simply run

serverless deploy

The expected result should be similar to:

Serverless: Packaging service...
Serverless: Uploading CloudFormation file to S3...
Serverless: Uploading service .zip file to S3 (1.47 KB)...
Serverless: Updating Stack...
Serverless: Checking Stack update progress...
..............
Serverless: Stack update finished...

Service Information
service: scheduled-cron-example
stage: dev
region: us-east-1
api keys:
  None
endpoints:
  None
functions:
  scheduled-cron-example-dev-cron: arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:377024778620:function:scheduled-cron-example-dev-cron
  scheduled-cron-example-dev-secondCron: arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:377024778620:function:scheduled-cron-example-dev-secondCron

There is no additional step required. Your defined schedule becomes active right away after deployment.

Usage

To see your cron job running tail your logs with:

serverless logs --function cron --tail

The expected result should be similar to:

START RequestId: eddf3fbe0a-11e6-8d73bdd3836e44 Version: $LATEST
Invalid date	2009T12:28:03.214Z	eddf3fbe0a-11e6-8d73bdd3836e44	Your cron function aws-python-scheduled-cron-dev-cron ran at 12:28:03.214844
END RequestId: eddf3fbe0a-11e6-8d73bdd3836e44
REPORT RequestId: eddf3fbe0a-11e6-8d73bdd3836e44	Duration: 0.40 ms	Billed Duration: 100 ms 	Memory Size: 1024 MB	Max Memory Used: 16 MB

START RequestId: af2da2ba-be0b-11e6-a2e2-05f86a84b0e4 Version: $LATEST
Invalid date	2009T12:33:27.715Z	af2da2ba-be0b-11e6-a2e2-05f86a84b0e4	Your cron function aws-python-scheduled-cron-dev-cron ran at 12:33:27.715374
END RequestId: af2da2ba-be0b-11e6-a2e2-05f86a84b0e4
REPORT RequestId: af2da2ba-be0b-11e6-a2e2-05f86a84b0e4	Duration: 0.32 ms	Billed Duration: 100 ms 	Memory Size: 1024 MB	Max Memory Used: 15 MB

Since this only shows you the logs of the first cron job simply change the function name and run the command again:

serverless logs --function secondCron --tail