Product / Heartbeat Monitor
Heartbeat Monitor
Outbound heartbeat monitoring for applications, jobs and services that need recent evidence of life.
Current Tier 1 foundationWhat Heartbeat Monitor answers
Heartbeat Monitor answers a narrow but useful question: did the application reach its reporting point and send an authenticated check-in? The monitored system initiates the request, so it can report from a private network, shared host or machine that does not accept inbound traffic.
How the model works
- The application sends a signed heartbeat or signal request.
- HeartbeatHook validates the application identity, timestamp, nonce and signature.
- The server records the request as evidence that the application reached that point.
Current Tier 1 evidence includes HMAC-SHA256 authentication, replay-aware request fields, idempotent signal creation and authenticated pending reads. It does not claim to understand the application business result.
Advantages
- outbound integration works with private or intermittent applications;
- the application reports from its own execution context;
- the contract is small and explicit;
- recent check-in evidence can be correlated with application logs.
Limitations and the next product decision
A heartbeat proves a check-in, not useful progress or successful business output. Missing-heartbeat policy belongs to Dead Man Monitor. Alive-but-stuck detection belongs to Dead Hand Monitor. Neither state engine is currently implemented in HPH, so this page does not promise automatic state transitions or notifications.
When to use it
Use the current Tier 1 contract for scheduled jobs, background workers and applications that can make outbound HTTPS requests. Pair it with your own logs, validation and incident process.