Engagement Hours & Scheduling
Time-window restrictions for active testing, automatic pause/resume, and scheduled engagement starts.
Engagement Hours
Engagement Hours restrict active testing to a defined daily time window. This is essential for engagements with specific rules of engagement (RoE) that prohibit testing outside business hours, or for engagements across time zones where testing must align with the client's operational schedule.
How It Works
- You define a start time, end time, timezone, and active days
- When the current time (in the selected timezone) enters the active window, running tools are automatically resumed
- When the current time exits the active window, running tools are automatically paused
- Paused tools checkpoint their state and resume from that checkpoint — no re-scanning of completed targets
- Tools in the queue remain queued and will start when the window reopens (if a parallelism slot is available)
Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enable | Off | Master switch. When off, tools run 24/7 with no time restrictions. |
| Start Time | 08:00 | The earliest time tools may actively test each active day. |
| End Time | 18:00 | The latest time tools may actively test each active day. Tools are paused at this time. |
| Timezone | US/Central | The timezone for interpreting start/end times. 8 options: US/Eastern, US/Central, US/Mountain, US/Pacific, UTC, Europe/London, Europe/Berlin, Asia/Tokyo. |
| Days | Mon–Fri | Checkboxes for each day of the week. Testing is only allowed on checked days. Saturday and Sunday are unchecked by default. |
Important Behaviors
- Pause is graceful — Crucible sends a pause signal to each tool. The tool checkpoints its progress, kills any active subprocesses, and suspends. Resume picks up from the checkpoint.
- Changes take effect immediately — If you modify engagement hours while tools are running and the current time is now outside the window, tools pause immediately.
- Queue interaction — Queued tools that haven't started yet remain queued. They will only be launched when the engagement hours window is active AND a parallelism slot is available.
- Manual override — You can manually Start/Resume a tool during off-hours. However, the engagement hours check runs periodically, so the tool may be paused again at the next check cycle. For genuine off-hours testing, disable engagement hours.
Scheduled Engagement Start
Separate from Engagement Hours, the Scheduled Start feature lets you set a specific date and time for the engagement to begin automatically. When the scheduled time arrives:
- All selected tools are submitted to the queue
- The queue processes them according to parallelism rules (exclusive tools go one at a time)
- If Engagement Hours are also enabled, the schedule only fires during an active window
This is useful for engagements that must begin at a precise time (e.g., start testing at midnight when traffic is lowest, or align with a client's maintenance window).
Where to Configure
- During creation — Step 2 of the Engagement Wizard (Tool Selection & Automation section)
- After creation — Settings tab → Engagement sub-tab → Engagement Hours / Scheduled Start sections