Timezones

Inside Goatbeat every instant is an aware UTC datetime. A naive datetime is rejected (NaiveDatetimeError, or ConfigurationError when passed to Registry.schedule); it is never interpreted in some local zone.

Cron schedules are evaluated in their own timezone: the timezone= argument, else the registry default, else UTC (Django: TIME_ZONE).

Daylight saving time

Goatbeat follows Vixie cron, the behavior most operators already expect.

Situation	Fixed hour (30 2 * * *)	Every hour (*/30 * * * *)
Clocks spring forward, 02:30 does not exist	runs once, at the end of the gap (03:00)	follows real time, the gap is skipped
Clocks fall back, 01:30 happens twice	runs once, on the first pass	runs on both passes

An hour field counts as "every hour" when it matches all 24 hours (*, */1, 0-23).

Gaps at midnight (some zones change at 00:00) and half-hour shifts (Australia/Lord_Howe) follow the same rules.

Changing a schedule's timezone

The next occurrence is recomputed from now in the new zone. No occurrence is created for the time between the old and the new next run.

Interval schedules

every="1d" is 24 elapsed hours. Across a DST change it shifts by an hour in local time. Use cron for wall-clock schedules.