Monitor cron jobs in Laravel

Integrate WatchCat with Laravel's task scheduler to get alerted when scheduled commands miss or fail.

Laravel's task scheduler runs all scheduled commands through a single cron entry. If the scheduler process itself dies, or if a specific command throws an exception, nothing in Laravel tells you. WatchCat fills that gap by expecting a ping after each command runs.

Step 1 — create a cron monitor

In WatchCat, go to Cron monitors → New monitor. Set the schedule to match your command's frequency and add a grace period of a few minutes to account for queue delay or slow boot times. Copy the ping URL — you'll need it in the next step.

Step 2 — ping after the command runs

Laravel's scheduler has built-in ping methods. Add thenPing() to any scheduled command and it will send a GET request to your WatchCat ping URL after a successful run.

routes/console.php (Laravel 11+)

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;

Schedule::command('invoices:send')
    ->daily()
    ->thenPing('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN');

app/Console/Kernel.php (Laravel 10 and earlier)

protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule): void
{
    $schedule->command('invoices:send')
        ->daily()
        ->thenPing('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN');
}

thenPing() only fires when the command exits successfully. To also detect commands that exit with an error, use pingOnFailure() pointing to the /fail endpoint:

Schedule::command('invoices:send')
    ->daily()
    ->thenPing('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN')
    ->pingOnFailure('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN/fail');

Track start and end

For long-running commands, use pingBefore() and thenPing() together. This lets WatchCat detect commands that started but never finished.

Schedule::command('reports:generate')
    ->hourly()
    ->pingBefore('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN/start')
    ->thenPing('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN/end')
    ->pingOnFailure('https://watchcat.io/p/cron/YOUR_TOKEN/fail');

Step 3 — verify the system cron entry

Laravel's scheduler only runs if the system cron calls artisan schedule:run every minute. Confirm the entry exists on your server:

crontab -l

You should see a line like:

* * * * * cd /var/www/myapp && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

If this entry is missing, your scheduled commands never run — and no ping will ever reach WatchCat.

Recommended settings

Schedule Match your command frequency exactly

Grace period 2–5 minutes for most commands; longer for heavy tasks

Alert after 1 missed run for critical jobs; 2 for less critical ones

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