Requex.me LogoRequex.me

Documentation

Browse by section

Keep all guides, tool docs, automation recipes, and comparison pages in one navigable place.

Docs Home
Docs

Foundation docs for getting started fast, understanding key terms, and tracking what has changed.

Features

Mock Server
Guides

Start with fundamentals, then move into provider-specific webhook testing and production hardening.

Tool Docs

These pages explain what each tool does, when to use it, and how it fits into a webhook debugging workflow.

Automation Docs

Use these setup guides when you want forwarding rules, custom responses, security checks, or multi-destination fanout.

Compare

Use these pages to compare developer workflows, pricing tradeoffs, and feature differences between webhook tools.

Quick Answer

To alert on cron job failures, define what "failed" means (non-2xx response, missing body match, timeout), set a consecutive-failure threshold (typically 3–5), then point a notify-webhook URL at your Slack / PagerDuty / Discord incoming-webhook. On Requex.me this is built in — no separate uptime service needed.

Cron Job Failure Alerts — Slack, PagerDuty, Discord

A cron that fails silently is worse than one that doesn't run at all. This guide shows you how to detect failures correctly and route alerts to the channel your team actually watches.

Last updated: May 2026 • 7 min read

Step 1: Define What "Failed" Means

A 200 response is not always a success. A 200 with body {"error":"db timeout"} means the endpoint answered but the work didn't happen. Define your failure criteria along three axes:

  • Expected status code — usually 200 or 204. Anything else is a failure.
  • Expected body match — a substring the response must contain (e.g. "ok"). Catches the "200 with error JSON" case.
  • Timeout — if the request hangs longer than expected, the run is failed regardless of response.

Step 2: Pick a Consecutive-Failure Threshold

Single failures are noise — a network blip, a transient 502 from the target. Multiple consecutive failures are signal. The right threshold depends on cadence:

Job cadenceRecommended thresholdWhy
Every minute5 failures5 min outage threshold; avoids flapping
Every 5 min3 failures15 min outage; matches typical SLO
Hourly2 failures2 hour gap is already meaningful
Daily / weekly1 failureAlert on the very first miss

Step 3: Route the Alert

Requex's notify-webhook field accepts any HTTPS URL. The notification POST contains job ID, name, last status code, last error, and timestamp — your downstream service formats and routes.

Slack

  1. Slack → Apps → Incoming Webhooks → Add to Slack → choose channel.
  2. Copy the https://hooks.slack.com/services/... URL.
  3. Paste into Requex cron job's Notify webhook URL field. Slack will render the payload as a basic message; for richer formatting put a small relay in front.

PagerDuty

  1. PagerDuty → Services → choose service → Integrations → add "Events API V2".
  2. Use the integration URL as your notify-webhook (format the payload via a small relay or use a Requex workflow to shape it into Events API v2 JSON).

Discord

  1. Discord channel → Settings → Integrations → Webhooks → New Webhook → copy URL.
  2. Paste into Requex notify-webhook. Discord renders the JSON inline — fine for alerts.

Step 4: Test the Alert Before You Need It

Temporarily point your cron job at a URL that returns 500 (Requex's response config can simulate this), wait for the threshold, and confirm the alert reaches the channel. Don't discover at 3 AM that your Slack webhook URL was rotated three months ago.

Related Resources

Cron Job Monitor

Live run logs and validation

How to Use Cron Jobs

Cron expressions, timezones, retries

Cronhub Alternative

Free cron monitoring

EasyCron Alternative

No execution caps

Set Up Cron Alerts in 60 Seconds

Free cron monitoring with built-in failure alerts.

Open Requex.me →