Question 1

What is Drumbeats?

Accepted Answer

Drumbeats is a heartbeat monitoring service for background jobs. Instead of polling your services from the outside, your jobs send HTTP pings to Drumbeats when they start, succeed, or fail. Drumbeats tracks these pings against each monitor's expected schedule and alerts you when a run is missed, fails, takes too long, or finishes too fast.

Question 2

How does heartbeat monitoring work?

Accepted Answer

You add a simple HTTP request (e.g. curl) to your job script that hits your monitor's unique ping URL. For a cron job, Drumbeats knows when the next run is expected. If it doesn't receive a ping within the schedule plus the grace period, it creates an incident and notifies your team. You can send start, success, failure, and log signals to track the full lifecycle of each run.

Question 3

How do I get started?

Accepted Answer

Sign up for free (no credit card needed), complete the short onboarding, and your first project is created automatically. Then create a monitor, choose its type (Cron, Heartbeat, or Event-driven), and copy the ping URL. Add an HTTP request to your job script pointing at that URL. Finally, connect a notification channel (Email, Slack, Telegram, Discord, Webhook, or Browser Push) so alerts reach the right team.

Question 4

What types of monitors can I create?

Accepted Answer

Three types: Cron monitors use a cron expression (e.g. "0 2 * * *") for jobs on a fixed schedule. Heartbeat monitors use a repeating duration (e.g. "5m", "1h") for jobs that run at a regular cadence. Event-driven monitors have no schedule and are designed for queue workers, webhook handlers, and one-off tasks where you track individual runs with start/success/failure signals.

Question 5

Can I monitor jobs behind a firewall or in a private VPC?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Because Drumbeats is ping-based, your job only needs to make an outbound HTTP request. There is no inbound probing, so your infrastructure can be completely private. As long as your job can reach the internet, it can ping Drumbeats.

Question 6

What is a "Beat"?

Accepted Answer

A Beat is the usage unit. Every ping costs 1 Beat as a base. If you include a payload body, it costs an additional 1 Beat per 25 KB chunk (rounded up). For example: a simple success ping with no payload = 1 Beat. A ping with a 50 KB log payload = 3 Beats (1 base + 2 chunks). Keep payloads focused to optimize usage. See the live Beats calculator on our pricing page to estimate your usage.

Question 7

What ping signals can I send?

Accepted Answer

Four signal types: "start" marks the beginning of a job run, "success" marks a successful completion, "failure" marks an error, and "log" records data without affecting the monitor's status. You can also send a numeric exit code (0 = success, 1-255 = failure). Each signal costs 1 base Beat.

Question 8

How does duration tracking work?

Accepted Answer

Send a "start" ping when your job begins and a "success" or "failure" ping when it ends. Drumbeats automatically calculates the duration by matching the pings using the run_id. You can also pass duration_ms explicitly in the POST body. If you configure min/max duration thresholds on the monitor, Drumbeats will create an incident when a job finishes too fast (DURATION_LOW) or too slow (DURATION_HIGH).

Question 9

What is a run_id?

Accepted Answer

A run_id groups multiple pings into one logical execution. When you send a start ping followed by log pings and a success/failure ping, the run_id links them together. You can pass your own run_id as a query parameter or in the POST body. If you omit it, Drumbeats generates one automatically on the start ping.

Question 10

How do I integrate pings into my job?

Accepted Answer

The simplest integration is a curl at the end of your script: your-job.sh && curl -sf https://api.drumbeats.io/v1/ping//success. For full lifecycle tracking: send /start before the job, then /success or /failure after. You can also send the exit code directly: curl -sf https://api.drumbeats.io/v1/ping//$?. We provide examples for Shell, Python, Node.js, Go, PHP, GitHub Actions, and Kubernetes — or use our AI agent setup to instrument your repo automatically.

Question 11

What is the minimum monitoring interval?

Accepted Answer

Free plan monitors can run as frequently as every 1 minute. Pro and Business plans support intervals down to 30 seconds.

Question 12

When does Drumbeats create an alert?

Accepted Answer

Alerts are created for five conditions: MISSED — no ping arrived within the expected schedule plus grace period (Cron/Heartbeat monitors). FAILED — a failure ping or non-zero exit code was received. HUNG — a start ping was sent but no finish arrived within the max duration. DURATION_HIGH — job took longer than max_duration_seconds. DURATION_LOW — job completed faster than min_duration_seconds. Each alert opens a tracked incident with a full event timeline.

Question 13

What are grace period, failure tolerance, and schedule tolerance?

Accepted Answer

Grace period (default: 5 minutes) is extra time after the expected run before a MISSED incident is created. Failure tolerance (default: 1) is how many consecutive failures before the monitor transitions to DOWN — set it to 2 or 3 for jobs with transient errors. Schedule tolerance (default: 1) is the same concept for consecutive missed runs on Cron/Heartbeat monitors.

Question 14

What happens when a DOWN monitor recovers?

Accepted Answer

When a DOWN monitor receives a success ping, all open incidents are automatically resolved, a recovery notification is sent to all configured channels (including downtime duration), the monitor transitions back to UP, and all consecutive failure/miss counters reset to zero. No manual action needed.

Question 15

What is alert surge protection?

Accepted Answer

If a job enters a failure loop (e.g. failing every minute), the alert_surge_threshold setting pauses notifications after N consecutive alerts. Incidents are still recorded and visible in the dashboard, but your team stops getting paged repeatedly. Notifications resume automatically when the monitor recovers.

Question 16

What notification channels are supported?

Accepted Answer

All plans include Email, Slack, Telegram, Discord, Webhook, and Browser Push notifications. You can create notification groups (e.g. "Backend Oncall" = Slack #alerts + team email) and assign them per monitor. Webhooks support simple and advanced modes with custom URL, method, headers, body templates, and placeholder variables like $MONITOR_NAME, $INCIDENT_ID, $DOWNTIME_DURATION_HUMAN.

Question 17

Can I acknowledge and manage incidents?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Incidents have three statuses: OPEN, ACKNOWLEDGED, and RESOLVED. Team members can acknowledge incidents to signal they're investigating, resolve them manually, or reopen resolved incidents. You can also assign incidents to specific team members and add notes for context.

Question 18

What's included in the free plan?

Accepted Answer

The free plan is $0 forever with no credit card required. It includes 50 monitors, 200K Beats per month, unlimited team seats, 250 ping-history entries per monitor, 100 KB max payload size, all notification channels (Email, Slack, Telegram, Discord, Webhook, Browser Push), and public status pages with Drumbeats branding.

Question 19

What do the paid plans include?

Accepted Answer

Pro ($20/month) includes unlimited monitors, 1M Beats, unlimited team seats, 1,000 ping-history entries, 1 MB payloads, custom vanity status page URLs, 30-second minimum intervals, and priority support. Business ($49/month) includes everything in Pro plus 3M Beats, 5,000 ping-history entries, and 2 MB payloads.

Question 20

How many Beats will I actually use?

Accepted Answer

A simple daily cron job sending one success ping uses about 30 Beats/month. 50 monitors running hourly with start + success pings use about 72,000 Beats/month (fits within Free). 100 monitors at the same frequency use about 144,000 Beats/month but require Pro since Free is capped at 50 monitors. 100 monitors every 5 minutes with start + success use about 1.7M Beats/month, which fits within Business (3M Beats included). Payloads increase the count. Use the pricing calculator at drumbeats.io/pricing to estimate your usage.

Question 21

How does pay-as-you-go (PAYG) work?

Accepted Answer

PAYG is a Business-plan opt-in and disabled by default. When enabled on Business, usage beyond your included monthly Beats is billed at $20 per 1M extra Beats ($0.00002 per Beat) with no block rounding. You can set a spending limit (default $100, minimum $10) to cap overage costs. Free and Pro do not offer PAYG — they hard-cap at the included Beats. Promo codes only reduce the base subscription, not overage.

Question 22

What happens when I approach or exceed my Beat limit?

Accepted Answer

On Free and Pro: at 100-110% usage you get a warning but everything works normally. At 110-130% pings are still recorded but payloads are dropped. Above 130% pings are rejected with HTTP 429. On Business with PAYG enabled, overage continues smoothly until you hit your spending limit. On Business without PAYG, the same hard-cap bands apply.

Question 23

How is billing scoped?

Accepted Answer

Billing is owner-wide. One subscription covers all projects you own. Included Beats, overage, invoices, and spending limits are shared across your owned projects. Upgrades apply immediately. Cancelling back to Free takes effect at the end of the current billing cycle.

Question 24

How do roles and permissions work?

Accepted Answer

Four roles: OWNER has full project control including billing and member management. MANAGER can manage monitors, invite/remove Members and Readonly users, and update project settings. MEMBER can view monitors, acknowledge incidents, and leave the project. READONLY has view-only access. Owners and Managers can invite team members; Managers can only invite at MEMBER or READONLY level.

Question 25

Can I have multiple projects?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Free includes 3 projects, Pro includes 10, and Business includes unlimited projects. Each project has its own monitors, team members (with project-scoped roles), notification channels, notification groups, and status pages. Billing is shared across all projects you own.

Question 26

How do I invite team members?

Accepted Answer

Go to your project settings and click 'Invite Member'. Enter their email and select a role. They receive an invitation email and have 7 days to accept. If they already have a Drumbeats account, they're added directly. New users go through signup first. All plans include unlimited team seats, so you can invite as many members as you need.

Question 27

What are the ping URL formats?

Accepted Answer

Two formats: by monitor ID — https://api.drumbeats.io/v1/ping// (where event is start, success, failure, log, or a numeric exit code). By slug — https://api.drumbeats.io/v1/s-ping///. Both support GET (simple ping) and POST (with payload, run_id, message, or duration_ms in the body).

Question 28

Do you have a management API?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The REST API lets you create, update, delete, and list monitors, manage incidents (acknowledge, resolve, reopen, assign, add notes), view ping history with filters, and configure notification channels and groups. Authenticate with API keys (format: dk__) created in your project settings. Each project+user can have up to 3 active keys.

Question 29

What are public status pages?

Accepted Answer

You can create a public status page for any Cron or Heartbeat monitor. It shows the monitor's current status and optionally its incident history. Free plan pages include Drumbeats branding. Pro and Business plans support custom vanity URLs (e.g. /s/your-service). You can control SEO indexing with a noindex flag and toggle incident visibility.

Question 30

What does the dashboard visualize?

Accepted Answer

Each monitor has a domino graph showing run status over configurable time windows (1h, 3h, 6h, 12h, 24h, 7d, 14d, 30d). For event-driven monitors, you also get ping analytics with success rates, duration stats (avg, min, max, p95), and time-series charts. The incident timeline shows all events with cause details and resolution history.

Question 31

How should I handle planned maintenance?

Accepted Answer

Pause the affected monitor before starting maintenance and resume it afterward. While paused, the monitor status is PAUSED, incoming pings are acknowledged but don't affect status, and no alerts are triggered. This prevents false MISSED and FAILED incidents during known downtime.

Question 32

I'm not receiving alerts. What should I check?

Accepted Answer

Check these in order: 1) Is the monitor active (not PAUSED or NEW)? A new monitor must receive its first ping before it starts tracking. 2) Is alert_enabled turned on for the monitor? 3) Are notification channels configured and enabled on the monitor? 4) Check if alert surge protection paused notifications (visible in monitor settings). 5) For email, check spam folders and verify the recipient email is confirmed. 6) Review the notification log in your project for delivery status.

Question 33

Why am I getting unexpected MISSED alerts?

Accepted Answer

MISSED alerts fire when no ping arrives within the expected time plus the grace period. Common causes: your job ran but the ping request failed silently (network issue, DNS problem), the grace period is too short for jobs with variable start times, or the cron expression doesn't match your actual job schedule. Try increasing the grace period (default is 5 minutes) or setting schedule_tolerance to 2 so one missed run doesn't immediately alert.

Question 34

My pings are returning HTTP 429. What does that mean?

Accepted Answer

HTTP 429 means rate-limited. Two possible causes: you're sending more than 600 pings per minute to a single monitor (the per-monitor rate limit), or you've exceeded 130% of your monthly Beat quota. For rate limits, check if your job is sending pings in a tight loop. For quota issues, upgrade to a higher plan, reduce ping frequency, or — on Business — enable PAYG to keep serving overage usage up to your spending limit.

Question 35

Can I pause monitoring temporarily?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pause any monitor from the dashboard or API. While paused, incoming pings are acknowledged but not processed, no incidents are created, and no alerts are sent. Resume when you're ready. This is useful for deployments, maintenance windows, and testing.

Question 36

Where is my data stored?

Accepted Answer

Drumbeats data is stored on servers in Germany (EU). During onboarding, you provide explicit consent for cross-border data transfer in compliance with GDPR and KVKK (Turkish data protection law). See our Privacy Policy for the full list of subprocessors and data flows.

Question 37

How is authentication handled?

Accepted Answer

Drumbeats supports email/password authentication and OAuth via Google and GitHub. Sessions use short-lived access tokens with refresh tokens. You can enable TOTP-based two-factor authentication per user, and project owners can enforce 2FA for all project members. API keys use bearer token authentication and are SHA256-hashed before storage.

Question 38

Are ping URLs secret?

Accepted Answer

Ping endpoints are intentionally low-friction and don't require authentication, which makes them easy to use from any environment. Treat your ping URLs like operational secrets: don't commit them to public repositories or share them in public channels. If a URL is exposed, recreate the monitor to get a new one.

Question 39

Should I avoid sending sensitive data in payloads?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Avoid including passwords, API tokens, secrets, or personally identifiable information in ping payloads. Payloads are stored for debugging purposes and are visible to team members with access to the project. Keep payloads focused on operational data like job output, error messages, and metrics.

Question 40

Are you GDPR and KVKK compliant?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We collect explicit consent during onboarding for data processing and cross-border transfer. Our Privacy Policy details what data is collected, how it's used, and your rights. You can contact us at support@drumbeats.io for data access, correction, or deletion requests.

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