Guide · No-code

Monitor Zapier with a dead man's switch

Zapier will email you when a step errors, but not when a Zap stops triggering altogether: a disconnected trigger app, a maxed-out task quota, an account someone paused. A check-in catches both, because it alerts on silence, not just on an error event.

1. Create a check

Create a check in Mortemain, set its period to match how often the Zap should run (its trigger's poll interval, or the interval on a Schedule by Zapier trigger), and copy the ping URL:

your ping URL

https://ping.mortemain.com/your-check-uuid

2. Ping on success with Webhooks by Zapier

As the very last action of the Zap, after every other step has run, add a Webhooks by Zapier action:

Event: GET
URL: your ping URL
Leave everything else at its default

Because it sits at the end, it only fires once the whole Zap has actually completed, not merely when it triggered.

3. Alert immediately when a step fails

Zapier's built-in failure emails tell you a step errored, but they won't fire at all if the Zap never triggered in the first place. For an explicit, immediate signal on real errors: open the Error handling settings on the action most likely to fail and set it to continue the Zap on error, then branch with Paths by Zapier so the failure path runs only when that step errored. End that path with a second Webhooks by Zapier GET action pointed at the /fail URL instead:

failure path URL

https://ping.mortemain.com/your-check-uuid/fail

Mortemain alerts the instant that request lands, instead of waiting for the check to go quiet.

4. Measure run duration (optional)

Want to know how long a Zap actually takes? Add a Webhooks by Zapier GET action right after the trigger, pointed at …/your-check-uuid/start. Mortemain will track the elapsed time between that call and the success ping, and can flag a Zap that's taking unusually long.

Test it

Turn the Zap on and trigger it once (or use Zapier's Test button on the final step) and confirm the check flips to up in Mortemain. Then force a step to fail on purpose and confirm the failure path fires the /fail ping and the alert arrives right away.

Using Make, Power Automate, n8n, or something else with no shell access? The general webhook / call-a-URL guide covers the same pattern for those tools.