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Heroku Scheduler monitoring with RunVouch
Heroku Scheduler monitoring for the run Heroku skipped: Heroku's own documentation calls Scheduler a best-effort service, a run can be skipped without a trace. For a nightly agent that is exactly the failure you cannot see from the logs.
How it runs on Heroku Scheduler
Scheduler starts a one-off dyno with the command you enter. Add runvouch to requirements.txt and prefix the command.
Store the key
Set the key as a config var: heroku config:set RUNVOUCH_KEY=rv_...; one-off dynos inherit it.
Wrap the job
# Scheduler command field rv run nightly-report --log /tmp/report.log -- python report.py # cadence registered once, from anywhere with the key rv agent nightly-report --cadence 24h --grace 30m --evidence
rv fails open: if RunVouch is unreachable the job still runs and you get one warning line.
Register the cadence and caps
rv agent nightly-report --cadence 24h --grace 30m --max-runtime 1h --evidence --cap-run-cost 2
Register the agent once, from anywhere with the key. Cadence is what turns a schedule that stopped into an alert; --evidence makes a run without evidence a failure; the caps pause the agent when it overspends.
What goes silent on Heroku Scheduler
- Skipped runs are documented behaviour, not an error; MISSED is the only alert you will get.
- One-off dynos have no persistent disk, so use
--log(the log growing during the run counts as evidence) or report a URL that must return 200.
What Heroku Scheduler does not tell you
The Heroku Dev Center states that Scheduler is a best-effort service and that a scheduled job may occasionally not run; it recommends a custom clock process for anything that must run. A skipped run leaves no dyno, no log line and no notification. A one-off dyno that exits 0 with no output is indistinguishable in heroku logs --ps scheduler from one that did the work.
What RunVouch detects
| Alert | What it means here |
|---|---|
| MISSED | cadence plus grace passed and no run started |
| FAILED | non-zero exit or a reported failure, with the stderr excerpt |
| NO_EVIDENCE | the run said ok but the file, URL or assertion you required is missing |
| STALLED | a run started and never ended within max runtime |
| RETRY_STORM | the same tool called with identical input many times in one run |
| BUDGET_RUN / BUDGET_DAY | cost cap crossed; the agent is paused until you resume it |
| DRIFT | duration or output size far off its 7-run baseline |
Set up in two minutes
- Get a free key (3 agents, no card) and store it where this page says.
- wrap the job: copy the snippet above into the scheduled job.
- Register the cadence once:
rv agent nightly-report --cadence 24h --grace 30m --evidence, or let the first run create the agent and set the cadence on the dashboard. - Send one test alert:
curl -X POST https://api.runvouch.com/v1/settings/test-alert -H "X-API-Key: $RUNVOUCH_KEY". The next missed, failed or empty run reaches the same channels.
Also running schedulers?
Claude Code scheduled tasks. OpenClaw automations and heartbeat. GitHub Actions schedule. Kubernetes CronJob. The full list of runtimes is on integrations, and the same agent can report from several of them: one job, one cadence, wherever it happens to run.
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