Making it happen unattended.
WHERE TO SCHEDULE
Cron, on your hosting.
WHAT TO SPECIFY
Full paths to the interpreter and the script.
WHAT TO ARRANGE
Output redirected to a log Notification on failure
THE NOTIFICATION POINT
Without it, a failing job fails silently for months.
WHAT TO BUILD INTO THE SCRIPT
A record that it ran and completed Protection against two copies running simultaneously
WHY THAT SECOND POINT
A job taking longer than its interval overlaps with itself.
That produces duplicated work or corrupted output.
HOW TO PREVENT IT
A lock file, checked at start and removed at finish, handled so a crash does not leave it stuck.
WHAT FREQUENCY TO USE
The least frequent that meets the need.
WHY
Every run consumes resources.
WHAT TO CHECK PERIODICALLY
That the job still runs That its output is still correct That its log is not growing without limit
WHAT TO DOCUMENT
What it does, when it runs, and what to check if it fails.
