Scheduled function patterns for background tasks including interval scheduling, cron expressions, job monitoring, retry strategies, and best practices for long-running tasks

Convex Cron Jobs Schedule recurring functions for background tasks, cleanup jobs, data syncing, and automated workflows in Convex applications. Documentation Sources Before implementing, do not assume; fetch the latest documentation: Primary: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling/cron jobs Scheduling Overview: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling Scheduled Functions: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling/scheduled functions For broader context: https://docs.convex.dev/llms.txt Instructions Cron Jobs Overview Convex cron jobs allow you to schedule functions to run at regular intervals or specific times. Key features: Run functions on a fixed schedule Support for interval based and cron expression scheduling Automatic retries on failure Monitoring via the Convex dashboard Basic Cron Setup Interval Based Scheduling Use crons.interval for simple recurring tasks: Cron Expression Scheduling Use crons.cron for precise scheduling with cron expressions: Cron Expression Reference Common patterns: Every minute 0 Every hour 0 0 Every day at midnight 0 0 0 Every Sunday at midnight 0 0 1 First day of every month /5 Every 5 minutes 0 9 17 1 5 Every hour from 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday Internal Functions for Crons Cron jobs should call internal functions for security: Cron Jobs with Arguments Pass static arguments to cron jobs: Monitoring and Logging Add logging to track cron job execution: Batching for Large Datasets Handle large datasets in batches to avoid timeouts: External API Calls in Crons Use actions for external API calls: Examples Schema for Cron Job Logging Complete Cron Configuration Example Best Practices Never run npx convex deploy unless explicitly instructed Never run any git commands unless explicitly instructed Only use crons.interval or crons.cron methods, not deprecated helpers Always call internal functions from cron jobs for security Import internal from generated/api even for functions in the same file Add logging and monitoring for production cron jobs Use batching for operations that process large datasets Handle errors gracefully to prevent job failures Use meaningful job names for dashboard visibility Consider timezone when using cron expressions (Convex uses UTC) Common Pitfalls 1. Using public functions Cron jobs should call internal functions only 2. Long running mutations Break large operations into batches 3. Missing error handling Unhandled errors will fail the entire job 4. Forgetting timezone All cron expressions use UTC 5. Using deprecated helpers Avoid crons.hourly , crons.daily , etc. 6. Not logging execution Makes debugging production issues difficult References Convex Documentation: https://docs.convex.dev/ Convex LLMs.txt: https://docs.convex.dev/llms.txt Cron Jobs: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling/cron jobs Scheduling Overview: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling Scheduled Functions: https://docs.convex.dev/scheduling/scheduled functions

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