Shell Script Client

The bundled hellocron.sh client wraps the API calls so you don’t write curl by hand. The source lives in the public hellocron/cli repository on GitHub - audit it, star it, or open an issue there.

Installation

Download the latest client and put it on your PATH:

curl -fsSL https://hellocron.com/hellocron.sh -o /usr/local/bin/hellocron
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/hellocron

Optional: verify the download against the published checksum.

curl -fsSL https://hellocron.com/hellocron.sh.sha256
sha256sum /usr/local/bin/hellocron

Configure via .hellocron.conf in your home directory:

api_url=https://api.hellocron.com
api_key=your-hellocron-api-key

The legacy JSON config (.hellocron-config.json) is still read for backward compatibility.

Version and updates

The download URL always serves the latest client. Updates are on demand, not automatic.

hellocron version          # installed version and date
hellocron update --check   # check whether a newer version exists
hellocron update           # download, verify checksum, replace (keeps a .bak)

update pulls from the same URL, verifies the SHA-256 checksum, runs a syntax check, backs up the current file as .bak, then swaps it in. It needs curl, sha256sum and bash, and only updates over HTTPS.

Version history: client changelog.

Usage

hellocron ping <monitor-name> <status> [options]

Statuses

hellocron ping my-job run
hellocron ping my-job complete
hellocron ping my-job fail
hellocron ping my-job skip

Options

Flag	Description
`--duration <seconds>`	Job duration
`--exit-code <int>`	Process exit code
`--host <hostname>`	Override hostname
`--message <text>`	Log message

Example

hellocron ping db-backup run

pg_dump mydb > /tmp/backup.sql
EXIT=$?

hellocron ping db-backup $([ $EXIT -eq 0 ] && echo complete || echo fail) \
  --exit-code $EXIT \
  --duration $SECONDS

Checking your setup

Run doctor to verify that everything is configured correctly:

hellocron doctor          # checks config, API URL, key, connectivity
hellocron doctor --ping   # additionally sends a real test ping (state: skip)

It checks: HTTP tool availability (curl/wget), config file and its permissions, API URL and key, temp directory, API reachability (/health) and crontab access. Exit code is 0 when everything is OK, 1 when problems are found.

Using in Docker

Mount the script and config into your container:

volumes:
  - ./client/hellocron.sh:/usr/local/bin/hellocron:ro
  - ./client/.hellocron.conf:/root/.hellocron.conf:ro