cron – Keystone Core

cron

Manages a single per-user crontab entry, identified by the declaration name and tagged with a marker comment so only that entry is owned. Idempotent: re-applying an unchanged declaration reports no change.

Category: Scheduled tasks

States

State	Meaning
`present`	The user’s crontab has an entry tagged with the declaration name, carrying the declared `schedule` and `command`.
`absent`	The user’s crontab has no entry tagged with the declaration name; an existing tagged entry is removed.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
`command`	string	yes	The command line to run (single line). Required for state `present`; rejected for `absent`.
`schedule`	string	yes	A five-field cron spec (`/5 * * *`) or an `@`-shortcut (`@daily`, `@reboot`, …). Required for state `present`; rejected for `absent`.
`user`	string		Owner of the crontab to manage. Default: `root`.

Examples

Run a nightly backup

cron:
  nightly-backup:
    state: present
    command: /usr/bin/backup
    schedule: "0 2 * * *"
    user: root

Per-user job with an @-shortcut

cron:
  app-cache-warm:
    state: present
    command: /opt/myapp/bin/warm-cache
    schedule: "@hourly"
    user: myapp

Remove a job

Only the entry tagged with this name is removed; other crontab lines are left alone.

cron:
  old-cleanup:
    state: absent
    user: root

Notes

Linux only; the module shells out to crontab(1) and fails when that binary is absent.
Manages exactly the entry tagged # keystone-cron: <name>; other crontab lines are never touched.
command and schedule are required for present and rejected for absent.
schedule field contents are not deeply validated — only field count and known @-shortcuts.
Out of scope (planned, #105): per-field schedule params, /etc/cron.d drop-ins, environment lines.

at systemd_timer