Heartbeat monitoring

When to use Heartbeat#

Use Heartbeat for cron jobs, backups, imports, exports, feeds, billing jobs, and other scheduled tasks. The task calls Watchfox after successful execution; Watchfox alerts when the expected ping becomes late or missing.

Create the monitor#

1. Open Monitors and click New Monitor.
2. Select Heartbeat.
3. Enter a friendly label that identifies the job.
4. Set the expected interval to match the real schedule.
5. Create the monitor.
6. Copy the generated heartbeat URL from the monitor detail.
7. Call that URL only after the job reaches the success point you want to monitor.

Integration example#

Call the heartbeat URL from your scheduler, script, CI job, or application. Treat the URL as a secret capability: do not publish it in public documentation or client-facing pages.

Test safely#

• Send one manual ping and confirm the latest heartbeat time changes.
• Configure and test an alert channel.
• For a controlled missing-ping test, use an isolated QA job or temporarily stop only the test integration.
• Restore the real schedule after the test.

Expected result#

On-time means the latest heartbeat is inside the expected interval. Late or Missing means the latest accepted ping exceeded the expected timing window. Recovery follows a new valid heartbeat after an alertable missing state.

Common mistakes#

• Pinging at job start even though the requirement is successful completion.
• Setting the interval shorter than the real schedule plus normal execution variation.
• Publishing the heartbeat URL.
• Assuming a missing heartbeat proves the whole server is down; it proves the expected ping did not arrive.
• Forgetting to update the expected interval when the cron schedule changes.