n8n Heartbeat Monitor: Cron & Backup Webhook + Telegram Alerts

Never wonder if your cron jobs (or backups) quietly died—get Telegram alerts the moment they stop reporting

n8n Heartbeat Monitor: Cron & Backup Webhook + Telegram Alerts is an n8n workflow that tracks heartbeat pings from your scheduled tasks via an n8n webhook, checks them every 15 minutes, and sends Telegram notifications when a job misses its expected interval—and again when it recovers.

What this workflow does

• Receives heartbeat pings at /webhook/heartbeat using a job query parameter (e.g., when a cron job or backup script finishes).
• Stores the latest heartbeat timestamp per job in workflow static data.
• Runs every 15 minutes on a schedule to evaluate all configured jobs and their maximum allowed hours between pings.
• Detects state changes: triggers alerts when a job transitions from OK → late (missed heartbeat) and when it returns late → OK (recovered).
• Sends Telegram messages for each state change, so you’re informed only when it matters.

Use cases

• Cron monitoring for SaaS operators: alert if critical background jobs stop running.
• Backup verification: notify immediately when a backup script fails to report completion.
• Production reliability: reduce time-to-detection by catching silent failures in scheduled workflows.

Technical details

• Nodes/logic used: webhook, schedule trigger, if, code, telegram (plus a Sticky Note for guidance).
• Heartbeat endpoint: /webhook/heartbeat?job=YOUR_JOB_NAME called via curl from your cron jobs/backups.
• Alerting: requires a free Telegram bot token (create with @BotFather) and a valid Telegram chat ID.
• Persistence: workflow static data must persist so heartbeat timestamps carry across runs and alerts trigger based on state changes.

Setup overview

Publish the workflow, copy the production webhook URL, add a curl call to each cron/backup script, edit the job list with max allowed hours between pings, configure Telegram credentials + chat ID, and activate the workflow.