Set Up Crons

Once implemented, it'll allow you to get alerts and metrics to help you solve errors, detect timeouts, and prevent disruptions to your service.

Requirements

• Use our getting started guide to install and configure the Sentry Go SDK (version 0.23.0 or newer) for your recurring job.
• Create and configure your first Monitor.

Check-Ins (Recommended)

Check-in monitoring allows you to track a job's progress by completing two check-ins: one at the start of your job and another at the end of your job. This two-step process allows Sentry to notify you if your job didn't start when expected (missed) or if it exceeded its maximum runtime (failed).

// 🟡 Notify Sentry your job is running:
checkinId := sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusInProgress,
	},
	nil,
)

// Execute your scheduled task here...

// 🟢 Notify Sentry your job has completed successfully:
sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		ID:          *checkinId,
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusOK,
	},
	nil,
)

If your job execution fails, you can notify Sentry about the failure:

// 🔴 Notify Sentry your job has failed:
sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		ID:          *checkinId,
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusError,
	},
	nil,
)

Heartbeat

Heartbeat monitoring notifies Sentry of a job's status through one check-in. This setup will only notify you if your job didn't start when expected (missed). If you need to track a job to see if it exceeded its maximum runtime (failed), use check-ins instead.

// Execute your scheduled task...

// 🟢 Notify Sentry your job completed successfully:
sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusOK,
		// Specify the duration of the job.
		Duration:    time.Second * 10,
	},
	nil,
)

If your job execution fails, you can:

// 🔴 Notify Sentry your job has failed:
sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusError,
		Duration:    time.Second * 10,
	},
	nil,
)

Upserting Cron Monitors

You can create and update your Monitors programmatically with code rather than creating and configuring them in Sentry.io.

// Create a crontab schedule object (every 10 minutes)
monitorSchedule := sentry.CrontabSchedule("*/10 * * * *")

// Or create an interval schedule object (every 10 minutes)
monitorSchedule := sentry.IntervalSchedule(10, sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitMinute)

Supported units are:

• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitMinute
• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitHour
• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitDay
• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitWeek
• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitMonth
• sentry.MonitorScheduleUnitYear

// Create a monitor config object
monitorConfig := &sentry.MonitorConfig{
	Schedule:      monitorSchedule,
	MaxRuntime:    2,
	CheckInMargin: 1,
	FailureIssueThreshold: 2,
}

// 🟡 Notify Sentry your job is running:
checkinId := sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusInProgress,
	},
	monitorConfig,
)

// Execute your scheduled task here...

// 🟢 Notify Sentry your job has completed successfully:
sentry.CaptureCheckIn(
	&sentry.CheckIn{
		MonitorSlug: "<monitor-slug>",
		Status:      sentry.CheckInStatusOK,
	},
	monitorConfig,
)

A full end-to-end example can be found in the sentry-go repository.

Connecting Errors to Cron Monitors

To link any exceptions captured during your job's lifecycle, use Sentry's context with your monitor slug.

sentry.ConfigureScope(func(scope *sentry.Scope) {
	scope.SetContext("monitor", sentry.Context{"slug": "<monitor-slug>"})
})

Alerts

When your recurring job fails to check in (missed), runs beyond its configured maximum runtime (failed), or manually reports a failure, Sentry will create an error event with a tag to your monitor.

To receive alerts about these events:

1. Navigate to Alerts in the sidebar.
2. Create a new alert and select "Issues" under "Errors" as the alert type.
3. Configure your alert and define a filter match to use: The event's tags match {key} {match} {value}.

Example: The event's tags match monitor.slug equals my-monitor-slug-here

Learn more in Issue Alert Configuration.

Rate Limits

Crons imposes a rate limit on check-ins to prevent abuse and resource overuse. Specifically, you can only send a maximum of 6 check-ins per minute per existing monitor environment. This limit is enforced on a per-project basis, meaning that the rate limit applies collectively to all monitor environments within a given project. You can check if any of your check-ins are being dropped in the Usage Stats page.

To avoid dropped check-ins, it is crucial to manage and distribute your check-ins efficiently within the rate limits. This will help maintain accurate monitoring and ensure that all critical check-ins are captured and processed.