Guides
Check in from anything.
One HTTP request (or one email) marks a job done. Here's the exact line for the tools you already use.
Read the blog → for the why behind silent-failure monitoring.
Fastest way
Or let your AI do it.
Paste this into your favourite AI assistant. Drop your job underneath, and it wires in the check-in for you. More on the AI way →
Add a Mortemain check-in to the job below so I get alerted if it ever silently stops. On success, make one HTTP request to https://ping.mortemain.com/PASTE-YOUR-CHECK-UUID; on failure, request that same URL with /fail on the end. Keep it minimal, no SDK, use curl / PowerShell / whatever fits my code, then show me the changed version. [ paste your cron line, script, or job here ]
Start here
Monitor cron jobs
Why cron never tells you a job stopped, and the one-line fix.
Monitor backups
The check-in pattern for any backup job, with links to every tool below.
Shells & languages
Shell script & cron (curl)
Linux and macOS: append one curl to any script or crontab line.
Windows & PowerShell
Scheduled Tasks and scripts with Invoke-RestMethod.
Python
A few lines with requests, plus a wrap-the-whole-script pattern.
Backups
pg_dump (PostgreSQL)
Wrap the nightly dump so a silent failure pages you.
rsync
Check the exit code, ping on success, /fail on error.
BorgBackup
Ping after borg create, handling its warning exit code.
Restic
A check-in wrapper for restic backup and prune.
Duplicati
A run-script-after hook that reads the parsed result.
Veeam backup
A post-job script that proves the backup actually finished.
Synology Hyper Backup
A DSM Task Scheduler check-in for your NAS backups.
TrueNAS (SCALE / CORE)
Ping from a Cron Job gated on your replication task.
CI/CD
GitHub Actions
A final step on success, a /fail step on failure.
GitLab CI
after_script on success, on_failure to /fail.
Jenkins
post { success / failure } in your Jenkinsfile.
Schedulers & orchestration
Windows Scheduled Tasks
Add a check-in action to any Task Scheduler task.
SQL Server Agent
A final job step that checks in, and alerts on failure.
Azure Automation
Wrap a PowerShell runbook in try/catch.
Apache Airflow
DAG-level success and failure callbacks.
Prefect
on_completion and on_failure state hooks.
Dagster
success_hook and failure_hook on a job.
Cloud functions
AWS Lambda (cron)
Check in at the end of a scheduled Lambda handler.
Azure Functions
A timer-triggered function that pings when done.
Containers
Data & BI
No-code & webhooks
Zapier
A Webhooks by Zapier step at the end of the Zap.
Make (Integromat)
An HTTP module at the end of the scenario.
Webhook / any app
No shell? Point any "call a URL" step at your check.
API & automation
Harden your check-ins
Get notified
Slack
Post alerts to a Slack channel with an incoming webhook.
Microsoft Teams
Route alerts into Teams via a Power Automate Workflow.
Discord
Send alerts to a Discord channel with a webhook.
Telegram
Get alerts as messages from your own Telegram bot.
ntfy
Push alerts to your phone, on ntfy.sh or self-hosted.