EC2 Instances

Uptime Scheduler starts and stops EC2 instances using the native AWS start/stop APIs. Instance storage (EBS) is preserved between cycles.

Supported states

State	Meaning
running	Instance is running and billable
stopped	Instance is stopped (EBS storage still billed, compute is not)
pending	Starting up
stopping	Shutting down

How scheduling works

• At schedule start time — ec2:StartInstances is called. The instance moves through pending → running.
• At schedule end time — ec2:StopInstances is called. The instance moves through stopping → stopped.

The scheduler waits for the instance to reach its target state before marking the action as complete.

Tag example

uptime:schedule = 9-17 mon-fri
uptime:env      = dev

Instance types

All instance types are supported. Spot instances are not managed by Uptime Scheduler (Spot capacity is managed by AWS directly).

Instance store

Instances with instance store volumes (i3, c5d, etc.) lose their instance store data when stopped. This is standard AWS behaviour. EBS root and data volumes are not affected.

Auto Scaling Groups

Uptime Scheduler does not currently manage Auto Scaling Groups directly. To schedule ASG instances, schedule the ASG’s desired capacity via ECS or use always-on / always-off tags on individual instances if they are launched outside an ASG.