temporalio/temporal · error

CronString does not have 5-7 fields

Error message

CronString does not have 5-7 fields

What it means

parseCronString tokenizes the cron string into at most 7 fields (second minute hour dayOfMonth month dayOfWeek year). If tokenization yields more than maxCronFields tokens — i.e. the string has 8 or more whitespace-separated fields — the parser rejects it as invalid because only 5-7 field cron syntax is supported.

Source

Thrown at service/worker/scheduler/calendar.go:284

	}

	// handle @hourly, etc.
	c = handlePredefinedCronStrings(c)

	// split fields
	cal := schedulepb.CalendarSpec{Comment: comment}
	// Use FieldsSeq to avoid building an unbounded slice; we only accept 5–7 fields.
	const maxCronFields = 7
	var toks [maxCronFields]string
	n := 0
	for tok := range strings.FieldsSeq(c) {
		if n < maxCronFields {
			toks[n] = tok
			n++
			continue
		}
		// More than 7 fields → invalid.
		return nil, nil, "", errors.New("CronString does not have 5-7 fields")
	}
	switch n {
	case 5:
		cal.Minute, cal.Hour, cal.DayOfMonth, cal.Month, cal.DayOfWeek = toks[0], toks[1], toks[2], toks[3], toks[4]
	case 6:
		cal.Minute, cal.Hour, cal.DayOfMonth, cal.Month, cal.DayOfWeek, cal.Year = toks[0], toks[1], toks[2], toks[3], toks[4], toks[5]
	case 7:
		cal.Second, cal.Minute, cal.Hour, cal.DayOfMonth, cal.Month, cal.DayOfWeek, cal.Year = toks[0], toks[1], toks[2], toks[3], toks[4], toks[5], toks[6]
	default:
		return nil, nil, "", errors.New("CronString does not have 5-7 fields")
	}

	structured, err := parseCalendarToStructured(&cal)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, nil, "", err
	}

	return structured, nil, tzName, nil

View on GitHub (pinned to bde624efd1)

Solutions

1. Remove extra tokens so only 5-7 whitespace-separated schedule fields remain (min hour dom mon dow [year] [second-first variant → 7 fields]).
2. Strip any trailing command/text from copied crontab entries — keep only the schedule portion.
3. Quote or remove internal comments; cron fields must not contain unquoted extra words.
4. Count fields before submitting: split on whitespace and require 5, 6, or 7 tokens.

Example fix

// before
cronSpec := "0 9 * * * root /usr/bin/backup.sh" // crontab line with command
// after
cronSpec := "0 9 * * *"

func cronFieldCount(c string) int { return len(strings.Fields(strings.TrimSpace(c))) }
// require 5 <= n <= 7 before submitting

if err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "does not have 5-7 fields") {
	// strip extra tokens (commands, comments) and resubmit
}

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a cron string with 8+ whitespace-separated tokens (e.g. extra descriptive words, comment text, or an appended argument) to a schedule spec.

Common situations: Copying crontab lines that include the command-to-run portion (user, command args) instead of only the schedule fields; strings with trailing comments or duplicated fields from bad shell interpolation; using 6-field seconds syntax plus a command.

Related errors

• CronString has time zone but missing fields
• CronString does not have interval after @every
• %s has too many slashes
• %s missing step value
• %s has invalid Step

AI-assisted analysis of temporalio/temporal@bde624efd1 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a81f012d961a35b7. Report an issue: GitHub.