Server Uptime Monitor & Alert System
Pings servers from a Google Sheet every minute, logging status to Alive/Down sheets and emailing alerts on failure.
developers and engineersops and IT teams
What it does
Get instant email alerts when your servers go down so you can fix issues immediately. The system pings every server listed in your Google Sheet each minute, logging active status to an 'Alive' sheet and recording failures with timestamps in a 'Down' sheet. You receive detailed notifications containing the specific server address whenever a failure occurs.
Step by step
- Configure a time-driven trigger in Google Apps Script to run every five minutes.
- Use UrlFetchApp.fetch() with a timeout of ten seconds for each server URL check.
- Append rows to the 'Alive' or 'Down' sheets using sheet.getRange().setValue().
Where the LLM does the work
- Generate context-aware suggested actions in the email body based on common failure modes like DNS errors or connection timeouts.
- Draft polite and urgent notification templates that adapt tone depending on whether it is a single server or multiple servers down.
- Create logic to deduplicate consecutive alerts so users do not receive spam emails for the same outage.
Watch out for
URLFetchApp does not follow redirects by default in all configurations, so explicitly handle HTTP status codes like 301 and 302 to ensure accurate uptime tracking.
Gmail quotas reset daily but are strict, so implement a cooldown mechanism to prevent sending more than fifty emails per day for the same alert type.
Tools that fit
HTTP Request API Ping servers to check status
The agent brief
Everything your agent needs, including the gotchas. Copy it and go.
You are helping me build the following AI agent workflow. ## Goal Server Uptime Monitor & Alert System: Pings servers from a Google Sheet every minute, logging status to Alive/Down sheets and emailing alerts on failure. ## Specification - What it does: Get instant email alerts when your servers go down so you can fix issues immediately. The system pings every server listed in your Google Sheet each minute, logging active status to an 'Alive' sheet and recording failures with timestamps in a 'Down' sheet. You receive detailed notifications containing the specific server address whenever a failure occurs. - Trigger: On a schedule (Scheduled · every minute) - Autonomy: Fully hands-off - Expected setup effort: about an afternoon - Tools/services involved: - Google Sheets: Store server list and uptime logs - HTTP Request: Ping servers to check status - Gmail: Send downtime alerts ## Known pitfalls, handle each one explicitly in your implementation 1. URLFetchApp does not follow redirects by default in all configurations, so explicitly handle HTTP status codes like 301 and 302 to ensure accurate uptime tracking. 2. Gmail quotas reset daily but are strict, so implement a cooldown mechanism to prevent sending more than fifty emails per day for the same alert type. ## Reference implementation https://n8n.io/workflows/3880 (workflow template) Fetch and inspect this before building. If it matches my stack, adapt it; if not, rebuild the pattern with my tools. ## Process requirements 1. Before building: ask me which of the listed tools I actually use and what my platform is (n8n / Make / code / other). Do not assume. 2. Adapt the pattern to my answers; do not force the reference stack. 3. Address every pitfall above; tell me how you handled each. 4. Provide a test plan I can run before letting this touch real data. 5. Ask before any step that sends messages, modifies data, or spends money. Source: https://usecasesforagents.com/use-case/server-uptime-monitor-alert-system/ via usecasesforagents.com
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a different Spreadsheet than Google Sheets?
Yes. Google Sheets is only the example spreadsheet in this recipe. The same flow works with Airtable, Baserow and Excel. Swap the spreadsheet connection and keep the rest of the setup as written.
Want this running in your business?
This is what I do. I design and build AI agents like this one, and keep them running. If you want it set up for your team instead of doing it yourself, get in touch.
Who it's for
Built for developers who want the busywork around code automated, not the code itself.
Ops-IT teams triaging their own internal requests get the same pattern, different queue.