The cron monitoring checklist
Use this checklist to audit how well your scheduled jobs are actually monitored. If you cannot tick a box, that is where your next silent failure is hiding.
Coverage
- Every scheduled job has a monitor — not just the important-looking ones.
- New jobs get a monitor as part of shipping them, not weeks later.
- Each monitor maps to exactly one job, so you know precisely what missed.
Missed-run detection
- You are alerted when a job does not run, not only when it errors.
- Each monitor’s expected interval matches the real schedule.
- A grace period absorbs a small delay before alerting.
Alerting
- Alerts reach a human on a channel they actually watch (email, Slack).
- The alert names the job and includes its last status and timing.
- The person who can fix the job is the one who gets paged.
Retries and flap control
- Jobs retry a bounded number of times with backoff.
- A single transient failure does not trigger a page.
- You are alerted when retries are exhausted, not on every attempt.
Logs and observability
- Each run records its status code, output, and duration.
- You can see the last N runs at a glance to spot patterns.
- Long-running or overlapping runs are visible.
Ownership
- Every job has a named owner.
- There is a short runbook for what to do when it fails.
- Failures are reviewed, not just silenced.
The one-line version
If you only do one thing: give every scheduled job a heartbeat ping and a monitor with the right interval and an owner. That single move ticks most of the boxes above.
your-command && curl -fsS https://cronmint.com/ping/YOUR-TOKEN >/dev/nullNever miss a silent cron failure again
Cronmint monitors your scheduled jobs and alerts you the moment one fails — or silently doesn't run. 5 jobs free, no card.
Start freeFrequently asked questions
What should a cron monitoring setup include?
Coverage for every job, missed-run detection, alerts that reach a human, bounded retries, per-run logs, and a named owner with a runbook. This checklist walks through each.
How do I audit my existing cron jobs?
Go job by job and confirm each has a monitor with the correct interval, an alert channel, and an owner. Any job you cannot tick off is an unmonitored risk.
What’s the minimum viable cron monitoring?
A heartbeat ping on every scheduled job plus a monitor with the expected interval and an owner. It covers whether the job ran, ran on time, and who to notify.