How to monitor Go robfig/cron jobs

A Go service restart stops an embedded scheduler. Monitor successful job completion outside the process.

Report success and failure

Create a check and set PING_URL to its private URL. Replace the example command with your actual task. These examples preserve command failure and do not let a failed reporting request turn a successful job into a failure.

#!/bin/sh
# PING_URL is the private URL copied from your check.
: "${PING_URL:?Set PING_URL first}"
rid="$(date +%s)-$$"
report() { curl -fsS -m 10 --retry 3 "$PING_URL/$1?rid=$rid" >/dev/null 2>&1 || :; }
trap 'code=$?; report "$code"; exit "$code"' EXIT
report start
sleep 1
/app/report

Connect it to Go robfig/cron

Import github.com/robfig/cron/v3, os/exec and log; start c in the owning service.

c := cron.New()
_, err := c.AddFunc("*/5 * * * *", func() {
  if err := exec.Command("sh", "/opt/monitored-job.sh").Run(); err != nil { log.Print(err) }
})
if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
c.Start()

These are integration fragments for an existing project, not a full application. Set the URL in the job’s environment, keep credentials private and ensure the runtime has the dependencies shown.

Things to watch

robfig/cron v3 uses five fields by default. Do not enable seconds when copying this expression into CronPulse.

The shell examples wait one second between start and work to respect the per-check rate guard. For very short tasks, completion-only pings avoid that delay. A killed process may never send a failure ping; the completion deadline catches the missing run instead.

Test the setup

  1. Run a successful task and confirm the check turns up.
  2. Force a nonzero exit or exception and verify the check turns down.
  3. Stop the scheduler after one success and wait for the expected run plus grace.

Set the schedule to your task’s completion cadence, allowing for runtime and queue delay. Use the cron helper to review your calendar schedule.

Questions about Go robfig/cron

Where should the heartbeat run?
Inside the completed task, after the important work. A Go service restart stops an embedded scheduler. Monitor successful job completion outside the process.
Which grace period should I use?
Allow for job runtime and scheduler startup delay. CronPulse evaluates deadlines once a minute, so alerts generally follow within about 1–2 minutes after grace ends.
Does this test the result of my work?
No. A success ping proves your command reached the reporting step. Validate output and, for backups, test restoration. Missing completion pings catch stopped or killed jobs.

Platform reference: official Go robfig/cron documentation. Adapt fragments to your installed version.

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