A CLI tool that wraps cron with automatic retry, distributed locking, run logging, and failure alerting
Developers running scheduled jobs on plain cron rebuild the same missing pieces every time: a retry loop when the job fails, a lock to stop two instances stomping each other, a log of which runs succeeded or failed, and an alert when something breaks at 3am. Temporal solves this but costs a full workflow engine and a cluster, and Kubernetes CronJobs need a cluster too. Healthchecks.io and Cronitor ping a URL after the job runs but cannot retry or re-execute it. This is a single static binary that wraps any existing crontab entry and adds retry-with-backoff, a file or Redis-backed distributed lock, a local run log with exit codes and duration, and webhook or PagerDuty alerting on failure, with no framework, no cluster, and no code change to the job itself.
Demand Breakdown
Social Proof 1 sources
Gap Assessment
5 tools exist (Temporal, Kubernetes CronJobs, Healthchecks.io, Cronitor, Supercronic) but gaps remain: Requires running a Temporal server cluster, learning a workflow SDK, and rewriting job logic as workflow code. Disproportionate overhead for teams with ten cron scripts that want retry-on-failure.; Requires a running Kubernetes cluster. Not available on a single VM or bare metal. No built-in retry-with-backoff or aggregated run history..
Features8 agent-ready prompts
Competitive LandscapeFREE
| Product | Does | Missing |
|---|---|---|
| Temporal | Durable workflow orchestration with built-in retry, state persistence, and observability across distributed services. | Requires running a Temporal server cluster, learning a workflow SDK, and rewriting job logic as workflow code. Disproportionate overhead for teams with ten cron scripts that want retry-on-failure. |
| Kubernetes CronJobs | Container-native scheduled jobs with concurrency and restart policies. | Requires a running Kubernetes cluster. Not available on a single VM or bare metal. No built-in retry-with-backoff or aggregated run history. |
| Healthchecks.io | Monitors cron jobs by waiting for an HTTP ping after completion; alerts if the ping does not arrive in the expected window. | Ping-only, zero execution. If the job fails or does not run, it alerts but cannot retry or re-trigger. No locking or run logging. |
| Cronitor | Cron job monitoring and alerting via HTTP telemetry pings; also uptime checks and status pages. | Same execution gap; monitors whether the job ran, does not retry or run it. No distributed lock, no local run log, no retry logic. |
| Supercronic | Drop-in crontab-compatible job runner for containers; runs cron in the foreground as PID 1, logs to stderr, preserves env. | No retry on failure, no distributed locking, no alerting, no run history. Solves the container-PID-1 problem only. |
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