Heartbeats

Heartbeats

Heartbeats let you track whether your cron jobs, scheduled tasks, background workers, and batch processes are running as expected. Create a monitor, get a unique check-in URL, and we'll alert you the moment a check-in is missed.

Key Features

• Unique Check-in URLs — Each monitor gets a unique URL like https://api.monoduty.com/pulse/abc123...
• Configurable Intervals — Set how often you expect check-ins (minimum 60 seconds)
• Grace Periods — Allow a buffer before alerting (e.g., 60 seconds grace)
• Multi-Channel Alerts — Email, SMS, Voice Call, Slack, Discord, Push Notification
• Escalation Support — Configure delay-based escalation to different channels
• Pause & Resume — Temporarily disable monitoring during maintenance windows
• Check-in History — View the last 20 check-in logs with timestamps

Creating a Heartbeat

Via Dashboard

1. Navigate to Dashboard → Heartbeats
2. Click "New Monitor"
3. Enter a name (e.g., "Nightly DB Backup")
4. Set the check-in interval (how often the task runs, e.g., every 300 seconds / 5 minutes)
5. Set a grace period (extra buffer before alerting, e.g., 60 seconds)
6. Configure notification channels (Email, SMS, Voice, Slack, etc.)
7. Click "Create" to get your unique check-in URL

Via API

curl -X POST https://api.monoduty.com/api/pulse-monitors \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Nightly DB Backup",
    "interval_seconds": 86400,
    "grace_seconds": 300,
    "channels": [
      {"type": "EMAIL"},
      {"type": "SMS", "target": "+1234567890", "delayMinutes": 5}
    ]
  }'

Integrating Check-ins

Send a simple HTTP request to your check-in URL from your cron job or scheduled task. Any HTTP method works (GET, POST, HEAD).

Cron Job Example

# Add to the end of your cron job script
*/5 * * * * /path/to/your/script.sh && curl -fsS --retry 3 https://api.monoduty.com/pulse/YOUR_TOKEN

Python Example

import requests

def my_scheduled_task():
    # ... your task logic here ...
    
    # Ping MonoDuty on success
    requests.get("https://api.monoduty.com/pulse/YOUR_TOKEN", timeout=10)

Node.js Example

const https = require('https');

async function myTask() {
  // ... your task logic ...
  
  // Ping MonoDuty on completion
  https.get('https://api.monoduty.com/pulse/YOUR_TOKEN');
}

Docker / Kubernetes CronJob

# Kubernetes CronJob example
apiVersion: batch/v1
kind: CronJob
metadata:
  name: db-backup
spec:
  schedule: "0 2 * * *"
  jobTemplate:
    spec:
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
          - name: backup
            image: my-backup:latest
            command:
            - /bin/sh
            - -c
            - "/backup.sh && curl -fsS https://api.monoduty.com/pulse/YOUR_TOKEN"

Alert Configuration

Heartbeats support the same notification channels as webhooks:

Escalation Example

You can configure multi-tier escalation. For example: send an Email immediately, then SMS after 5 minutes if still unresolved, then Voice Call after 10 minutes:

{
  "channels": [
    {"type": "EMAIL", "delayMinutes": 0},
    {"type": "SMS", "target": "+1234567890", "delayMinutes": 5},
    {"type": "CALL", "target": "+1234567890", "delayMinutes": 10}
  ]
}