Trigger types reference

Foundry supports arbitrary nesting of AND and OR triggers, enabling the creation of specific customized triggers.

Time trigger

A time trigger is a trigger that is satisfied at specified instants in time.

A time trigger is only satisfied at the specified instants. After a specified instant has passed the time trigger is no longer satisfied.

Cron expression

A time trigger is defined using a cron expression ↗ and a time zone.

Tip

The schedule editor provides an easy-to-use interface to define simple time triggers without having to write a cron expression.

More complex time triggers may require writing a custom cron expression.

The schedule editor uses the standard Unix cron expression format with five fields:

+--------- Minute
| +------- Hour
| | +----- Day of Month
| | | +--- Month
| | | | +- Day of Week
| | | | |
* * * * *

Data Health uses the Quartz cron format ↗ (six-parameter), not the Unix cron format ↗ (five-parameter). Quartz implements an additional field for seconds, which is prepended to the standard Unix cron format.

The schedule editor allows the following values for each field:

Field	Allowed Values	Allowed Special Characters	Notes
Minute	0-59	`*` `-` `/` `,`
Hour	0-23	`*` `-` `/` `,`
Day of Month	1-31	`*` `-` `/` `,` `L`
Month	1-12 or JAN-DEC	`*` `-` `/` `,`
Day of Week	0-6 or SUN-SAT	`*` `-` `/` `,` `L` `#`	7 is also Sunday

The meaning of the special characters is detailed below:

Asterisk (*): Specifies all values.

Examples:

Minute Meaning
* Every minute
Hyphen (-): Specifies a range of values.

Examples:

Minute Meaning
10-20 The minutes between 10 and 20, inclusive
Slash (/): Specifies a stepped range of values.

A stepped range may be defined using either a value or a range:
- When used with a value, the range is from the specified value to the maximum value for that field
- When used with a range, the range is the specified range
Examples:

Minute Meaning
25/10 Every tenth minute beginning from 25 (25, 35, 45, and 55)
25-45/10 Every tenth minute between 25 and 45, inclusive (25, 35, and 45)
Comma (,): Specifies a list of values, ranges, and/or stepped ranges.

Examples:

Minute Meaning
10,20,30 Minutes 10, 20, and 30
10,20-30 Minute 10 and the minutes between 20 and 30, inclusive
10,25-45/10 Minute 10 and every tenth minute between 25 and 45, inclusive
L (L): Specifies the last value.

The meaning of L is dependent on how it is used:
- When used in the Day of Month field, it specifies the last day of the month
- When used in the Day of Week field by itself, it specifies the last day of the week (Saturday)
- When used in the Day of Week field with a value, it specifies the latest day of the month with the specified day of week
Examples:

Day of Month Meaning
L Last day of the month

Day of Week Meaning
L Last day of the week (Saturday)
2L Last Tuesday of the month
Hash (#): Specifies the nth day of week of the month.

Examples:

Day of Week Meaning
2#4 Fourth Tuesday of the month

Minute	Meaning
`*`	Every minute

Minute	Meaning
`10-20`	The minutes between 10 and 20, inclusive

Minute	Meaning
`25/10`	Every tenth minute beginning from 25 (25, 35, 45, and 55)
`25-45/10`	Every tenth minute between 25 and 45, inclusive (25, 35, and 45)

Minute	Meaning
`10,20,30`	Minutes 10, 20, and 30
`10,20-30`	Minute 10 and the minutes between 20 and 30, inclusive
`10,25-45/10`	Minute 10 and every tenth minute between 25 and 45, inclusive

Day of Month	Meaning
`L`	Last day of the month

Day of Week	Meaning
`L`	Last day of the week (Saturday)
`2L`	Last Tuesday of the month

Day of Week	Meaning
`2#4`	Fourth Tuesday of the month

The time trigger will be satisfied when the cron expression matches the current date and time.

If both the Day of Month and Day of Week fields are not *, the trigger will be satisfied if either matches the current date and time.

Examples:

Cron Expression	Meaning
`30 9 * * 1`	9:30am on Monday
`30 17 * 2 1`	5:30pm on Monday in February
`0 9-17 10 * *`	Every hour from 9:00am to 5:00pm on the 10^th of the month
`0 9-17/2 10 * *`	Every two hours from 9:00am to 5:00pm on the 10^th of the month
`0 9,17 10 * *`	9:00am and 5:00pm on the 10^th of the month
`0/5 9-17 15 3 *`	Every five minutes from 9:00am to 5:55pm on the 15^th of March
`0/5 9,17 15 3 *`	Every five minutes from 9:00am to 9:55pm and from 5:00pm to 5:55pm on the 15^th of March
`0 9 L * *`	9:00am on the last of the month
`0 9 L 2 *`	9:00am on the last of February
`0 9 * * L`	9:00am on Saturday
`0 9 * * 2L`	9:00am on the last Tuesday of the month
`0 9 * 4 3#1`	9:00am on the first Wednesday of April
`0 9 20 * 4`	9:00am on the 20^th of the month and on Thursday

Time changes

All time triggers are evaluated using the wall-clock time in the specified time zone. A time trigger will be satisfied each time a wall-clock time occurs that satisfies the cron expression. Time changes are handled in the following way:

If the time moves forward, a time trigger satisfied in between the time change will not be satisfied
If the time moves backward, a time trigger satisfied in between the time change will be satisfied twice

Examples:

If the time moves forward from 1:00am to 2:00am, a time trigger satisfied at 1:30am will not be satisfied because 1:30am never occurred
If the time moves backward from 2:00am to 1:00am, a time trigger satisfied at 1:30am will be satisfied twice because 1:30am occurred twice

Event trigger

An event trigger is a trigger that is satisfied once a specified event has occurred.

An event trigger remains satisfied after the event has occurred until the entire trigger is satisfied and the schedule is run.

Event types

The schedule editor currently supports the following event types:

New logic: Occurs when the logic to compute a dataset is updated.
Data updated: Occurs when a transaction is committed that updates a dataset.
Job succeeded: Occurs when a job on a dataset is completed, regardless of whether a transaction was committed.
Schedule ran successfully: Occurs when a scheduled build is completed successfully.

Compound trigger

A compound trigger is created by combining multiple component triggers using AND triggers and OR triggers.

An AND trigger creates a trigger that is the conjunction of its component triggers.
An OR trigger creates a trigger that is the disjunction of its component triggers.

Examples:

In the following examples, T1, T2 are time triggers and E1, E2 are event triggers.

Trigger	Meaning
`AND(T1, E1)`	Satisfied at `T1` if `E1` has occurred
`OR(T1, E1)`	Satisfied at `T1` or when `E1` occurs
`AND(T1, T2)` ^[1]	Satisfied at times that satisfy both `T1` and `T2`
`OR(T1, T2)`	Satisfied at either `T1` or `T2`
`AND(E1, E2)`	Satisfied when both `E1` and `E2` have occurred
`OR(E1, E2)`	Satisfied when either `E1` and `E2` have occurred
`AND(T1, OR(E1, E2))`	Satisfied at `T1` if either `E1` or `E2` has occurred
`OR(T1, AND(E1, E2))`	Satisfied at `T1` or when both `E1` and `E2` have occurred

[1] Creating an AND trigger with multiple time triggers will only be satisfied when all time triggers coincide. For example, an AND trigger with a daily trigger and an hourly trigger will only be satisfied once per day. Instead, a more specific single time trigger should be used. In the previous example, the AND trigger should be replaced with just the daily trigger.