Cronlytic Trigger

Trigger workflows using Cronlytic advanced cron scheduling

Overview

The Cronlytic Trigger node allows workflows in n8n to be triggered based on advanced cron scheduling managed by the external Cronlytic service. Instead of relying solely on local cron expressions, this node registers a cron job with Cronlytic, which then triggers the workflow via webhook at scheduled times.

This is beneficial when you need:

Reliable and scalable cron scheduling offloaded to an external service.
Complex or high-frequency cron jobs without burdening your local environment.
To trigger workflows with custom JSON payloads and headers.

Example use cases:

Running daily reports at 9 AM every day.
Triggering workflows every 5 minutes for monitoring or polling tasks.
Scheduling workflows with complex timing patterns supported by Cronlytic.

Properties

Name	Meaning
Job Name	Unique identifier for the cron job; must be alphanumeric with hyphens or underscores allowed.
Cron Expression	Standard 5-field cron expression (minute hour day month day-of-week) defining the schedule.
Webhook Body	Optional JSON data sent as the body with each webhook trigger request.
Additional Headers	Optional additional HTTP headers to include in webhook requests; specify multiple name-value pairs.

Output

The node outputs JSON data each time the webhook is triggered by Cronlytic. The output JSON contains:

headers: The HTTP headers received in the webhook request.
params: Query parameters from the webhook URL.
body: The JSON payload sent by Cronlytic (or the configured webhook body).
timestamp: ISO string timestamp of when the webhook was received.
source: A fixed string "cronlytic" indicating the source of the trigger.
cronlytic_trigger: Boolean true flag marking the event as originating from this trigger.

No binary data output is produced by this node.

Dependencies

Requires an API key credential for authenticating with the Cronlytic API.
Needs network access to https://api.cronlytic.com for managing cron jobs.
The node uses the n8n HTTP request helper to communicate with Cronlytic's REST API.
The webhook URL exposed by n8n must be publicly accessible for Cronlytic to send triggers.

Troubleshooting

Job creation failure: Errors during job creation often relate to invalid cron expressions, duplicate job names, or authentication issues. Verify the cron syntax, ensure the job name is unique, and confirm the API credentials are correct.
Webhook not triggering: Ensure the webhook URL is reachable from the internet and that Cronlytic has successfully registered the job.
API errors: If the node throws errors mentioning "API Error", check the detailed message returned by Cronlytic. Common causes include invalid API keys or exceeding rate limits.
Timeouts warming lambda: The node attempts to "warm" the Cronlytic lambda endpoint before creating jobs. Repeated failures here may indicate network issues or downtime on Cronlytic's side.

Links and References

This summary is based purely on static analysis of the provided source code and property definitions.