# Create a scheduled action for Amazon ECS service auto scaling
<a name="scheduled-action-create-policy"></a>

Create a scheduled action to have Amazon ECS increase or decrease the number of tasks that your service runs based on the date and time. 

## Console
<a name="scheduled-action-policy-aws-console"></a>

1. Open the console at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/ecs/v2](https://console.amazonaws.cn/ecs/v2).

1. On the **Clusters** page, choose the cluster.

1. On the cluster details page, in the **Services** section, choose the service.

   The service details page appears.

1. Choose **Service auto scaling**.

   The service auto scaling page appears.

1. If you haven't configured service auto scaling, choose **Set the number of tasks**.

   The **Amazon ECS service task count** section appears.

   Under **Amazon ECS service task count**, choose **Use service auto scaling to adjust your service's desired task count**.

   The **Task count section** appears.

   1. For **Minimum number of tasks**, enter the lower limit of the number of tasks for service auto scaling to use. The desired count will not go below this count.

   1. For **Maximum**, enter the upper limit of the number of tasks for service auto scaling to use. The desired count will not go above this count.

   1. Choose **Choose Save**.

      The policies page appears.

1. Choose **Scheduled actions**, and then choose **Create**.

   The **Create Scheduled action** page appears.

1. For **Action name**, enter a unique name.

1. For **Time zone**, choose a time zone.

   All of the time zones listed are from the IANA Time Zone database. For more information, see [List of tz database time zones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones).

1. For **Start time**, enter the **Date** and **Time** the action starts.

   If you chose a recurring schedule, the start time defines when the first scheduled action in the recurring series runs.

1. For **Recurrence**, choose one of the available options.
   + To scale on a recurring schedule, choose how often Amazon ECS runs the scheduled action.
     + If you choose an option that begins with **Rate**, the cron expression is created for you.
     + If you choose **Cron**, enter a cron expression that specifies when to perform the action. 
   + To scale only once, choose **Once**.

1. Under **Task adjustments**, do the following:
   + For **Minimum**, enter the minumum number of tasks the service should run.
   + For **Maximum**, enter the maximum number of tasks the service should run.

1. Choose **Create scheduled action**.

## CLI
<a name="scheduled-action-aws-cli"></a>

Use the Amazon CLI as follows to configure scheduled scaling policies for your service. Replace each {{user input placeholder}} with your own information.

**Example: To scale one time only**  
Use the following [put-scheduled-action](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/cli/latest/reference/application-autoscaling/put-scheduled-action.html) command with the `--start-time "YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssZ"` and and either or both of the `--MinCapacity` and `--MaxCapacity` options. 

```
aws application-autoscaling put-scheduled-action --service-namespace ecs \
  --resource-id service/{{my-cluster}}/{{my-service}} \
  --scheduled-action-name {{my-one-time-schedule}} \
  --start-time {{2021-01-30T12:00:00}} \
  --scalable-target-action MinCapacity={{3}},MaxCapacity={{10}}
```

**Example: To schedule scaling on a recurring schedule**  
Use the following [put-scheduled-action](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/cli/latest/reference/application-autoscaling/put-scheduled-action.html) command. Replace the {{user input}} with your values.

```
aws application-autoscaling put-scheduled-action --service-namespace ecs \
  --resource-id service/{{my-cluster}}/{{my-service}} \
  --scheduled-action-name {{my-recurring-action}} \
  --schedule "rate({{5 hours}})" \
  --start-time {{2021-01-30T12:00:00}} \
  --end-time {{2021-01-31T22:00:00}} \
  --scalable-target-action MinCapacity={{3}},MaxCapacity={{10}}
```

The specified recurrence schedule runs based on the UTC time zone. To specify a different time zone, include the `--time-zone` option and the name of the IANA time zone, as in the following example.

```
--time-zone "{{America/New_York}}"
```

For more information, see [List of tz database time zones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones).