Cron Jobs

A Deta Micro can be set to run on a schedule from the deta cli using the deta cron set command.

In this guide we are going to configure a deta micro to run every five minutes.

The guide assumes you have already signed up for Deta and have the Deta CLI installed.

  1. Create a directory cron-job and change the current directory to it.

    $ mkdir cron-job && cd cron-job

  2. In order to set a micro to run on a schedule, the micro's code needs to define a function that will be run on the schedule with the help of our library deta, which is pre-installed on a micro and can just be imported directly.

    Create a index.js file and define the function that should run on the schedule.

    // import app from 'deta'
    const { app } = require('deta');
    // use app.lib.cron to define the function that runs on the schedule
    // takes an `event` as an argument
    app.lib.cron(event => {
    console.log("running on a schedule");
    });
    module.exports = app;

  3. Create a new nodejs micro with deta new.

    $ deta new
    Successfully created a new micro
    {
    "name": "cron-job",
    "runtime": "nodejs12.x",
    "endpoint": "https://{micro_name}.deta.dev",
    "visor": "enabled",
    "http_auth": "enabled"
    }

    Even though the output shows a HTTP endpoint, you do not need it for cron.

  4. Set the micro to run on a schedule with the deta cron set command.

    $ deta cron set "5 minutes"
    Scheduling micro...
    Successfully set micro to schedule for "5 minutes"

    We have set the micro to run every five minutes. In order to see if a micro is running on a schedule, you can use the deta details command.

    $ deta details
    {
    "name": "cron-job",
    "runtime": "nodejs12.x",
    "endpoint": "https://{micro_name}.deta.dev",
    "visor": "enabled",
    "http_auth": "enabled",
    "cron": "5 minutes"
    }

    The details show that the cron has ben set for 5 minutes

  1. In order to see logs of your cron-job, you can use Deta Visor, which enables you to see real-time logs of a Deta Micro. Open your micro's visor page with deta visor open from the cli or by navigating to your micro's visor page on the browser.

    $ deta visor open
    Opening visor in the browser...

We have a micro which prints "running on a schedule" every five minutes. You should see the execution logs in your micro's visor page every five minutes.

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