trac3r00 Cron Audit
Crontab lines are write-only for most humans. This reads them back.
Commands
python3 scripts/cron_audit.py /etc/crontab
crontab -l | python3 scripts/cron_audit.py -
python3 scripts/cron_audit.py deploy/crontab.txt --max-freq-min 5 --json
Reports
Per line: parsed schedule values (hour [2], minute [0], weekday [1,2,3,4,5]),
a plain-words explanation ("every weekday, hour 9-17, every 15 minutes"),
and the command. Invalid lines get the exact parse error
(range 25-30 outside hour 0-23).
Exit 1 on any invalid line — a CI gate for committed crontabs.
Catches
- Wrong field count (5 fields + command required)
- Values/ranges outside field bounds (minute>59, month>12)
- Bad steps (
*/0), unparseable tokens - Jobs more frequent than
--max-freq-minminutes (runaway polling)
Pairs with
apple-suite (the GUI-app automation layer; cron is the headless layer),
sys-health (is the box those jobs run on healthy).