Cronjob Monitoring Metrics That Actually Matter

Most cron dashboards are noise: line charts nobody reads, aggregate success counts that hide the rot. exit1.dev keeps cronjob monitoring sharp by focusing on four metrics that actually predict failure.

1. Expected cadence vs. observed cadence

Track how often the job should run versus how often it actually pings exit1.dev. A missing run is failure, not a rounding error. Plot cadence drift and alert on a single miss. Anything softer invites customer-facing outages.

2. Start-to-finish duration

Duration spikes point to upstream issues. Compare each run’s duration_ms payload against the historical median. Alert when it doubles. That’s how you catch slow databases before they time out, and it’s baked into exit1.dev’s JSON assertions.

3. Time-to-detect and time-to-resolve

Measure how long it takes to notice and fix a failed cron. Pair exit1.dev alerts with incident response playbooks so you can tighten the loop. You should know within minutes, not hours.

4. Downstream impact checks

If the cron populates a cache or triggers an email campaign, monitor that surface too. Use our Free Website Monitoring Tools 2025 Guide to set up HTTP or API checks that confirm the scheduled task actually delivered.

Bonus: combine cron and SLA reporting

Roll cron reliability into your SLO reviews. SLA Reporting with a Free Uptime Stack shows how to put exit1.dev data into client-facing decks. When you can prove scheduled tasks hit their targets, contract renewals get easier.

Internal linking that matters

Keep readers moving through the site:

• From cron monitoring posts, link to Free Uptime Monitor vs Paid for context on why our free tier punches above its weight.
• Point operators to Real-Time vs 5 Minute Monitoring when they argue over alert frequency.
• Reference Free SLA Monitoring Guide when compliance teams show up.

Stay focused on these metrics and cronjob monitoring becomes predictable, measurable, and finally respected.