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How to Use Cron Jobs to Schedule HTTP Requests

Cron jobs let you hit any URL on a recurring schedule without standing up a worker, a queue, or a server. This guide walks through every option in the Requex.me cron editor and the patterns we see most often.

Last updated: April 2026 • 8 min read

Quick Answer

To schedule an HTTP request, open Crons, click New cron job, name it, pick a schedule preset (or write a custom cron expression), choose a timezone, and set the target URL with method, headers, and body. Turn on logs and retries if you want to see and recover from failures.

TL;DR

  • Pick a preset for common schedules; write a cron expression only when you need to.
  • Always set the timezone explicitly so DST does not shift your job by an hour.
  • Enable logs on anything you actually care about, even if you do not check them daily.
  • Use retries with backoff for flaky targets, and auto-pause for broken ones.
  • Send failure alerts to a Discord or Slack webhook so a silent break does not stay silent.

Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Open Crons and click New cron job.
  2. Give it a clear name. Daily order sync beats cron 1 when you have ten of them.
  3. Pick a schedule preset (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, etc.) or choose Custom and write a cron expression.
  4. Choose the timezone the schedule should run in. The default is UTC.
  5. Pick the target type: a public HTTP URL or one of your Requex webhooks.
  6. Set method, headers, and body. You can paste a cURL command with Import cURL to skip this manually.
  7. Optionally set Response Validation to require a status code or substring in the response body.
  8. Toggle Enable Logs if you want a record of every run.
  9. Open Advanced for retries, auto-pause, failure notifications, and log retention.
  10. Save. The cron starts on the next matching tick. Click Run once to test it immediately.

Cron Expressions, Briefly

A cron expression has five space-separated fields:

# ┌───────────── minute        (0 - 59)
# │ ┌─────────── hour          (0 - 23)
# │ │ ┌───────── day of month  (1 - 31)
# │ │ │ ┌─────── month         (1 - 12)
# │ │ │ │ ┌───── day of week   (0 - 6, 0 = Sun)
# │ │ │ │ │
  *  *  *  *  *

A few examples:

  • */5 * * * * — every 5 minutes
  • 0 * * * * — every hour, on the hour
  • 0 9 * * 1-5 — weekdays at 09:00
  • 30 2 1 * * — 02:30 on the 1st of every month
  • 0 0 * * 0 — midnight on Sundays

Targets: HTTP URL vs Requex Webhook

There are two target types:

  • HTTP URL — any reachable endpoint. Good for hitting your own backend, third-party APIs, or status pages.
  • Requex Webhook — one of your existing Requex webhooks. Good for replaying traffic into a workflow, exercising forwarding rules, or generating a steady stream of test requests.

Reliability Settings

Retries with backoff

Set how many times a failed run should be retried, and how many seconds to wait between attempts. Useful for endpoints that occasionally drop a request but recover quickly.

Auto-pause on N consecutive failures

After N failures in a row, the cron pauses itself. Good for protecting a target that goes down for hours so you do not pile up error logs.

Failure notifications

Drop in a Discord or Slack webhook URL and you will get a formatted alert every time a run fails. For other tools, the body is a generic JSON payload.

Response validation

A 200 response can still be wrong. Require a specific status code or a substring in the response body and any mismatch is treated as a failure.

Common Patterns

Keep services warm

Hit a serverless endpoint every 5 minutes during business hours so the first real request of the day does not pay the cold-start tax.

Nightly ETL or sync jobs

Trigger a backend route at 02:00 to pull data, sync a CRM, or generate reports without depending on a separate scheduler.

Heartbeat and health checks

Call a status URL every minute, validate the response body, and ping Slack if anything other than a healthy response comes back.

Test traffic into a workflow

Schedule small POSTs into a Requex webhook to exercise downstream filters, transforms, retries, and rate limits.

Common Mistakes

  • Using UTC for a job that should follow business hours, then losing an hour every spring.
  • Forgetting to enable logs on a cron you only check when something goes wrong.
  • Setting Auto-Pause After 1 on a flaky target — one bad run pauses the whole schedule.
  • Hard-coding secrets in the body. Put them in a header that you keep separate from your repo.
  • Pointing a cron at *.requex.me in a way that loops back to itself; this is blocked at the platform level.

FAQ

What is a cron job?

A cron job is a scheduled task that runs automatically on a recurring cadence. On Requex.me, each cron job sends an HTTP request to a URL or to one of your Requex webhooks at the time you choose.

How do I write a cron expression?

A cron expression has five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, and day of week. For example, "0 9 * * 1-5" means every weekday at 9:00. If you do not need a custom expression, pick one of the built-in presets like Hourly, Daily, or Weekly.

What timezone do cron jobs run in?

You select the timezone per cron job. Pick the timezone your business or users live in so daylight saving time does not shift the run time twice a year.

Can I retry failed runs automatically?

Yes. Set Max Retries and Backoff in the Advanced section. Retries fire only when the run fails, with the configured delay between attempts.

Can a cron job auto-pause if it keeps failing?

Yes. Set Auto-Pause After N Consecutive Failures in the Advanced section to stop the cron after repeated failures, so you do not flood a broken endpoint.

How do I get notified when a cron fails?

Add a Failure Notification webhook URL in the Advanced section. Discord and Slack URLs are auto-detected. Any other URL receives a generic JSON payload.

How do I see what each run did?

Enable Logs on the cron. Each execution stores its request, response status, duration, and any error so you can inspect runs from the Logs button.

Can I schedule a request to my Requex webhook?

Yes. Choose Requex Webhook as the target type and pick one of your existing webhooks. Useful for replaying traffic, smoke testing, or driving downstream workflows.

Ready to schedule your first request?

Pick a preset, set the timezone, paste a cURL command, and your cron is live. Logs, retries, and Slack alerts are one toggle each.

Open Crons →