Choosing the right schedule type

Scheduled work looks simple until timing semantics matter. A delayed reminder, a polling loop, a heartbeat, and a daily report each need a slightly different scheduling rule.

Chrono separates those rules into focused APIs so the schedule tells readers how the task is supposed to behave.

One-shot tasks

Use a one-shot task when work should run once at a specific time.

This fits reminders, deadline checks, delayed actions, and other jobs that do not repeat.

Fixed delay

Use fixed delay when the next run should wait until the previous execution finishes.

This fits polling, cleanup, synchronization, and other jobs where overlapping runs would make behavior harder to reason about.

Fixed rate

Use fixed rate when the interval itself matters.

This fits metrics collection, heartbeat publishing, and periodic checks that should follow a steady cadence.

Cron schedules

Use cron when the schedule is calendar-based.

This fits daily reports, nightly maintenance, billing windows, and jobs that need to run at a particular local time.