deadcron (Python)

A local dead-man's-switch for cron jobs. Cron never tells you when a job stops running — the backup that silently hasn't fired in three days, the sync that's been crashing since Tuesday. deadcron notices the silence and alerts you. Zero dependencies (pure stdlib), no server to host.

There's also an identical npm version (npx deadcron). Both share the same ~/.deadcron state format.

pip install deadcron

# Replace your crontab command with a wrapped version:
*/30 * * * *  deadcron run backup --every 1h -- /usr/local/bin/backup.sh

# Then let the watcher check for silence:
deadcron install --every 5m

Why

"Cron jobs do not tell you when they fail. That is the core issue."

The classic incident: a database backup script dies at 2 a.m., keeps "running" in cron's eyes, and nobody finds out until the day you actually need the backup. Hosted monitors (healthchecks.io, Cronitor, Dead Man's Snitch) solve this — but they need an account and send your job metadata to a third party. deadcron runs entirely on your machine: a small state file plus a watcher you schedule yourself.

How it works

1. Each run checks in — wrap the command with run (pings on exit 0, records the exit code on failure) or call ping <name> at the end of your job.
2. A job declares its expected period with --every (+ optional --grace). If the time since the last successful check-in exceeds every + grace, the job is overdue.
3. The watcher runs check on its own schedule (added to cron once via install) and fires every alert channel you've enabled.

Tracking a job

# Recommended: wrap the command.
deadcron run backup --every 1d --grace 1h -- /opt/backup.sh

# Or ping manually at the end of a script:
deadcron register backup --every 1d --grace 1h
deadcron ping backup

deadcron status
#  ● backup    ok                every 1d   last: 3h ago
#  ● sync      OVERDUE by 2h     every 1h   last: 3h ago

The watcher

deadcron check                  # exit 1 if anything is overdue/failed
deadcron check --json
deadcron install --every 5m     # add `check` to crontab (idempotent)
deadcron uninstall

check throttles repeat alerts (default: at most once per hour per job).

Alert channels

check fires every enabled channel at once. Terminal is on by default.

deadcron config show
deadcron config enable macos
deadcron config set-webhook https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXX
deadcron config set-email --to ops@you.com --sendmail
deadcron config set-email --to ops@you.com --from cron@you.com \
    --smtp-host smtp.gmail.com --smtp-port 465 \
    --smtp-user me@gmail.com --smtp-pass "app-password"
deadcron config test            # send a sample alert through all of them

Managing jobs

deadcron pause <name>     # maintenance window
deadcron resume <name>
deadcron fail <name>      # mark last run as failed
deadcron rm <name>

Storage

Plain JSON under ~/.deadcron/ (override with $DEADCRON_HOME). Nothing leaves your machine unless you configure a webhook or email channel.

Exit codes

0 healthy · 1 one or more jobs overdue/failed · 2 error.

Duration format

30s · 5m · 2h · 1d · 1w (a bare number means seconds).

License

MIT