Scheduled API calls

How to schedule API calls

Scheduling API calls sounds simple until the schedule needs to come from product data. Fixed cron config can call one endpoint every hour, but recurring syncs, reminders, and reports often need one schedule per customer, tenant, or workflow.

What "schedule API calls" usually means in a product

Most teams are not trying to ping a public API from a laptop script. They need their application to trigger authenticated HTTP requests on a recurring cadence as part of normal product behavior.

Common examples include syncing data from third-party integrations, generating weekly reports, sending reminder workflows, retrying failed exports, or running tenant-specific maintenance tasks. In each case, the schedule belongs to application data and needs to be managed from code.

Why static cron jobs are not enough

Deploy-time cron config does not work when each customer needs a different schedule.
Updating schedules should not require editing infrastructure or shipping a new deploy.
You usually need to attach headers, payloads, or record identifiers to each recurring request.
Operationally, you need visibility into which scheduled calls ran, failed, or were retried.

The clean pattern: schedule webhooks, not workers

The usual implementation is to expose a protected endpoint in your app, then use an external scheduler to call that endpoint on the cadence your backend created. Your application still owns the business logic, but the scheduler owns timing and delivery.

// Your app receives the scheduled API call
export async function POST(request: Request) {
  if (request.headers.get("x-cron-secret") !== process.env.CRON_SECRET) {
    return new Response("Unauthorized", { status: 401 });
  }
  const payload = await request.json().catch(() => ({}));
  await runRecurringSync(payload.integrationId);
  return Response.json({ ok: true });
}

Create the schedule from your backend

When a customer enables a recurring workflow, your backend can create the schedule through CronCoco and store the returned job id with the relevant record. That gives you a clean path to update, pause, or delete the schedule later.

curl -X POST https://api.croncoco.io/jobs \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer coco_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name":"integration-sync-acme","cron_expression":"0 */6 * * *","webhook_url":"https://your-app.com/api/scheduled/integration-sync","headers":{"x-cron-secret":"YOUR_SECRET"},"payload":{"integrationId":"int_123"}}'

What to send with a scheduled API call

In practice, most teams include a shared secret header plus enough payload data to identify the target workflow. That might be an account id, integration id, report id, or reminder batch id. Keep the payload small and fetch the rest of the data from your database when the request arrives.

Operational details that matter

Make the target endpoint idempotent so retries do not duplicate work.
Store the scheduler job id with your domain record so schedule changes are easy.
Authenticate every scheduled request with a secret header.
Use execution history to debug failed customer-specific schedules.

Where CronCoco fits

CronCoco is useful when you need recurring API calls created from application logic instead of hard-coded platform cron entries. Your backend creates and manages schedules through an API, and CronCoco delivers the webhook on time.

For related patterns, read when you need a webhook scheduler API, how to run cron jobs in a serverless app, and dynamic cron jobs in Next.js. If you want to implement this directly, start with the Create job API docs.