setup-cron.md

🕐 Cron Job Setup for Render Free Tier

Since Render's free tier doesn't support persistent cron jobs, we need to use an external cron service.

🚀 Solution: External Cron Service

Option 1: cron-job.org (Recommended - Free)

1. Go to: https://cron-job.org/
2. Sign up for a free account
3. Create a new cron job:
   • Title: AI Blog Automation
   • URL: https://your-render-app.onrender.com/webhook
   • Schedule: Every 5 minutes (to ensure we catch 9 AM)
   • Method: POST
   • Headers: Content-Type: application/json
   • Body: {}

Option 2: UptimeRobot (Free)

1. Go to: https://uptimerobot.com/
2. Sign up for a free account
3. Add a new monitor:
   • Monitor Type: HTTP(s)
   • URL: https://your-render-app.onrender.com/webhook
   • Monitoring Interval: 5 minutes
   • Method: POST

Option 3: GitHub Actions (Free)

Create .github/workflows/cron.yml:

name: Blog Automation Cron

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: "0 9 * * *" # Every day at 9 AM UTC

jobs:
  trigger-blog:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Trigger Blog Generation
        run: |
          curl -X POST https://your-render-app.onrender.com/webhook \
            -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
            -d '{}'

🔧 How It Works

1. External service pings your webhook every 5 minutes
2. Webhook checks if it's 9 AM (with 5-minute window)
3. If it's 9 AM: Triggers blog generation
4. If not 9 AM: Just responds with status

📊 Monitoring

• Health Check: https://your-render-app.onrender.com/
• Manual Trigger: POST https://your-render-app.onrender.com/trigger
• Keep Alive: https://your-render-app.onrender.com/keep-alive

🎯 Benefits

✅ Works on Render Free Tier
✅ No server sleep issues
✅ Reliable scheduling
✅ Easy monitoring
✅ Free external service

🔄 Update Your Render URL

Replace your-render-app.onrender.com with your actual Render URL in the setup above.