Set Up Crons

Monitor the uptime and performance of your scheduled jobs in Next.js. Get alerts when jobs fail, timeout, or don't run as expected.

Setup Methods

Choose the method that matches your current setup:

• UI Setup - Create monitors in Sentry's web interface, then add instrumentation

Automatic Integration

• Vercel Automatic Integration - Auto-instrument Vercel Cron Jobs (Pages Router only)
• node-cron - Auto-instrument node-cron library
• cron - Auto-instrument cron library
• node-schedule - Auto-instrument node-schedule library

If you're using one of these popular cron libraries, use the automatic integration for seamless monitoring.

Manual Methods

• Job Monitoring - Use withMonitor wrapper for automatic status tracking
• Check-Ins - Full control with manual status updates
• Heartbeat - Simple success/failure notifications
• Upserting Monitors - Programmatic monitor creation and management

Alternative Methods (Not Recommended)

These methods work but don't provide the full benefits of SDK integration like tracing and error context:

• Sentry CLI - Command-line tool for basic monitoring
• HTTP API - Direct API calls for check-ins

Next.js-Specific Considerations

Server and Edge Runtimes

Cron monitoring is only supported in Server and Edge runtimes for Next.js. Client-side monitoring is not available.

App Router vs Pages Router

• Vercel Automatic Integration: Only works with Pages Router
• All other methods: Work with both App Router and Pages Router

API Routes Example

For App Router route handlers:

import * as Sentry from "@sentry/nextjs";

export async function GET() {
  return Sentry.withMonitor("daily-report", async () => {
    // Your cron job logic here
    await generateDailyReport();
    return new Response("Report generated", { status: 200 });
  });
}

For Pages Router API routes:

import * as Sentry from "@sentry/nextjs";
import type { NextApiRequest, NextApiResponse } from "next";

export default async function handler(
  req: NextApiRequest,
  res: NextApiResponse,
) {
  return Sentry.withMonitor("daily-report", async () => {
    // Your cron job logic here
    await generateDailyReport();
    res.status(200).json({ message: "Report generated" });
  });
}

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.

Additional Resources

• Troubleshooting Cron Monitoring
• Cron Monitoring Best Practices
• Debugging Failed Cron Jobs