Dead man's switch at Fajita

• Glossary/
• Scheduled Jobs/
• Dead man's switch

Scheduled Jobs

Dead man's switch

Dead man's switch is a control that alerts when an expected signal stops arriving.

What is dead man's switch?

Dead man's switch describes a control that alerts when an expected signal stops arriving. In reliability work, the label is useful only when it maps to a measurable check, a clear owner, and a next action when expectations break. Without that operational meaning, the phrase becomes decoration in dashboards and status updates.

Why it matters

Dead man's switch matters because teams need a precise shared meaning for a control that alerts when an expected signal stops arriving. Vague language turns incidents into arguments about words instead of fixes.

When everyone uses the same definition, alerts, status updates, and post-incident reviews stay aligned.

How it works

In practice, a control that alerts when an expected signal stops arriving shows up as a concrete signal you can measure or communicate. Operators define what good looks like, watch for deviations, and record what happened when expectations break.

The useful version of dead man's switch is operational: it changes who gets notified, what customers see, or which metric a team reviews after an incident.

Practical example

Imagine a team operating around alert if the reporter job stops pinging daily. When observed behavior stops matching the definition of dead man's switch, the team treats that change as a reliability event with a clear owner and next step.

Common misconception

Dead man's switches are only physical hardware

That reading usually collapses distinct ideas into one slogan. Keep dead man's switch tied to observable behavior so the definition stays useful under pressure.

How Fajita handles this

Heartbeat monitoring is a software dead man's switch for scheduled work.

Reading tip

This glossary page explains the concept. Product steps live in the documentation links below. The applicable agreement controls Fajita’s contractual obligations when a topic touches billing, privacy, or service commitments.

Related terms

• Heartbeat monitoring
• Cron job

Related documentation

• Heartbeat monitoring

Monitor your first endpoint with Fajita

Create a website, API, certificate, or heartbeat monitor and test it before monitoring begins.

Start monitoring

Was this definition clear?

PreviousCustom status-page domainNextDead-letter queue

On this page

• Why it matters
• How it works
• Practical example
• Common misconception
• Dead man's switches are only physical hardware
• How Fajita handles this