How to Schedule a Nightly Pipeline in CircleCI

Scheduled pipelines fire on a cron and can set pipeline parameters to branch the config.

Define a scheduled trigger that sets a parameter like run_nightly, then guard heavy jobs with a when: clause that reads it.

Parameter-driven nightly run

A pipeline parameter set by the schedule selects the nightly workflow.

version: 2.1
parameters:
  run_nightly:
    type: boolean
    default: false
workflows:
  nightly:
    when: << pipeline.parameters.run_nightly >>
    jobs:
      - full-regression

Notes

• Create the schedule in Project Settings > Triggers and have it set run_nightly: true.
• Scheduled pipelines replaced the deprecated cron under the legacy triggers key.
• Keep the default false so normal pushes skip the nightly-only workflow.

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