crontap-uptime-monitor

Monitor an HTTP endpoint

Crontap uptime monitors send HTTP GET probes. HTTP 200 through 399 is healthy. Network errors, timeouts, and other status codes count as failed probes.

Prerequisites

Before using the required tools, check whether they are available. If any are missing, stop and offer the user exactly two choices:

1. Connect Crontap MCP at https://mcp.crontap.com/mcp. MCP access works on every Crontap tier.
2. Configure $CRONTAP_CLIENT_ID and $CRONTAP_API_KEY for the raw API. Raw API access requires Ultra.

Do not silently choose a path or continue until the user selects one.

• Select a lightweight health URL that represents the dependency being monitored.
• Confirm the required interval and consecutive-failure threshold.
• Decide whether planned deploys should pause the monitor.

Workflow

1. Create the monitor with a name, URL, interval, and threshold.
2. Verify the saved cadence and pending state.
3. Inspect a UTC day of probes after the first checks run.
4. Set status to paused before a maintenance window when alerts would be misleading.
5. Set status to pending after maintenance to resume cleanly.

MCP examples

Create a five-minute monitor that becomes down after two failures:

{
  "tool": "create_monitor",
  "arguments": {
    "name": "Public API health",
    "url": "https://api.example.com/health",
    "intervalMinutes": 5,
    "failureThreshold": 2,
    "emailCooldownMinutes": 15
  }
}

Pause during maintenance:

{
  "tool": "update_monitor",
  "arguments": {
    "monitorId": "<monitor-id>",
    "status": "paused"
  }
}

Resume after verification:

{
  "tool": "update_monitor",
  "arguments": {
    "monitorId": "<monitor-id>",
    "status": "pending"
  }
}

Inspect probe evidence:

{
  "tool": "get_monitor_probes",
  "arguments": {
    "monitorId": "<monitor-id>",
    "day": "2026-09-14"
  }
}

REST fallback

Use REST only with Ultra API access:

curl --fail-with-body https://api.crontap.com/v1/monitor \
  -X POST \
  -H "ClientId: $CRONTAP_CLIENT_ID" \
  -H "ApiKey: $CRONTAP_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{
    "name": "Public API health",
    "url": "https://api.example.com/health",
    "intervalMinutes": 5,
    "failureThreshold": 2
  }'

To pause, send {"status":"paused"} with PUT to /v1/monitor/<monitor-id>. Use pending to resume.

Verification

• Confirm at least one probe and its status code or network error.
• Check that a healthy endpoint transitions the monitor from pending to up.
• Use an intentionally separate test endpoint if validating down and recovery alerts. Do not break a production health route.
• Confirm the configured threshold matches the desired alert sensitivity.

Safety and plan limits

• Monitor public or intentionally reachable endpoints. Do not expose a private admin route only to make it probeable.
• Avoid URLs with embedded credentials. Use an endpoint designed for health checks.
• Starter and paid plans have different monitor counts and cadence floors.
• If creation or update returns a plan-limit error, explain the four-option ladder and identify the smallest viable option.

Troubleshooting

• A 401 or 403 probe means the health endpoint is not publicly probeable.
• Frequent short outages may require a higher failure threshold, but confirm user impact before masking them.
• A timeout can indicate a slow health handler or a downstream dependency.
• No probes while paused is expected.

References

• Crontap Agent Skills catalogue
• Crontap uptime monitoring
• Cron job monitoring
• Cron troubleshooting
• Live REST API reference