Never Let a Silent Cron Job Failure Go Unnoticed
Monitor background workers, database backups, and scheduled queue runners. Receive sub-second alerts via WhatsApp and Slack when a recurring job fails or misses its window.
One-Line Integration for Any Language
Add a simple HTTP ping at the end of your task. Zero SDK required.
0 3 * * * /opt/scripts/backup.sh && curl -fsS -m 10 --retry 3 https://uptara.co/ping/hb_live_8f3a91bc
import requests
try:
process_daily_settlement()
requests.get("https://uptara.co/ping/hb_live_8f3a91bc", timeout=10)
except Exception as e:
report_exception(e)Built for Resilient Background Architecture
Everything you need to monitor asynchronous workflows without false alarms.
Flexible Schedules & Cron Parsing
Support for standard 5-part cron syntax, interval timers (every 5m, 1h, 24h), and calendar schedules with automatic timezone adjustments.
Configurable Grace Periods
Avoid false positives from variable job runtimes. Configure custom grace windows so heavy batches have time to finish cleanly.
Multi-Channel Instant Alerts
Receive notifications through WhatsApp, Slack, PagerDuty, and Webhooks within seconds when a dead-man switch is triggered.
Frequently Asked Questions About Heartbeat Monitoring
Everything you need to know about setting up dead-man switches and cron job alerts.
Heartbeat monitoring is an inverse monitoring pattern where your background workers, database backup scripts, or recurring cron jobs send an HTTP ping to Uptara upon completion. If Uptara does not receive a ping within your specified interval plus grace period, an incident is triggered immediately.
Simply append a curl or HTTP GET request to the end of your bash script, Python daemon, Celery task, or Kubernetes CronJob: curl -fsS -m 10 --retry 3 https://uptara.co/ping/YOUR_UNIQUE_TOKEN
A grace period is a configurable buffer (e.g. 5 minutes for an hourly job) that accounts for minor task duration variance or network latency before an incident is marked DOWN.
Yes. You can send /ping/TOKEN/start when your batch process begins and /ping/TOKEN when it finishes. Uptara will record the exact job run duration and alert if the process takes unexpectedly long.
Instant alerts are dispatched via WhatsApp, Slack, PagerDuty, Microsoft Teams, custom webhooks, SMS, and Email within seconds of a missed ping.
API Reliability & Monitoring Ecosystem
Explore connected platform capabilities, in-depth engineering guides, and interactive developer utilities.
Related Capabilities
Synthetic Monitoring
Simulate realistic multi-step user journeys with dynamic variable extraction and JSON assertions.
WhatsApp Alerts
Sub-second mobile escalation via native WhatsApp messages, Slack, Discord, and webhooks.
Status Pages
Custom CNAME branded status pages with automated monitor synchronization and subscriber email alerts.
Recommended Guides
Heartbeat vs Synthetic
An architectural comparison between push-based dead-man switches and pull-based multi-step synthetic API workflows.
How to Monitor Microservices
Patterns for /health/live vs /health/ready, cascading failure prevention, and dead-man heartbeats.
Measure API Reliability
A mathematically grounded framework for time-based vs request-based availability and incident lifecycle.