How do I monitor cron jobs in production?
Track job execution in a database (CronJob collection with status, duration, result, error). Send metrics to CloudWatch (success/failure count per job). Set up alerts (email, Slack) for failures. Create a /health/cron endpoint to view job status. Document all jobs in a registry with name, schedule, timeout, and retries.
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More FAQs in Cron Jobs in Production Best Practices for Reliable Scheduled Tasks
Track job execution in a database. Before running, check if the job already ran for this period (e.g., DigestLog.findOne({ date: today })). If it exists, skip. After running, create a record. This prevents duplicate emails or data processing if the job runs twice.
Specify timezone in cron.schedule options: cron.schedule('0 9 * * *', fn, { timezone: 'Asia/Kolkata' }). For per-user timezones, run hourly and check which users' local time is 9 AM. This ensures users receive notifications at their local time, not the server's time.
Use a distributed lock with Redis: redis.set('lockKey', 'locked', 'NX', 'EX', 300). If another instance already acquired the lock, skip the job. Release the lock with redis.del('lockKey') after completion. The TTL ensures the lock is released if the instance crashes.
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