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Posted on • Originally published at vigilmon.online

How to Monitor Your Laravel Application with Vigilmon

#laravel #php #monitoring #devops

Laravel powers millions of production applications — from SaaS products to e-commerce platforms to API backends. But Laravel's elegance doesn't prevent the most common production failures: a queue worker dying silently, a scheduled task missing its window, or a Livewire component endpoint returning 500 errors.

This guide covers everything you need to monitor a Laravel application effectively with Vigilmon.

The Laravel Monitoring Checklist

A complete Laravel monitoring setup covers:

  • [ ] App URL availability (HTTPS, response code, keyword)
  • [ ] Laravel health endpoint (/up in Laravel 10+)
  • [ ] Queue health (workers processing jobs)
  • [ ] Scheduled tasks (cron running on time)
  • [ ] Horizon dashboard (if using Laravel Horizon)
  • [ ] Critical API routes

Step 1: Use Laravel's Built-in Health Endpoint

Since Laravel 10, the framework ships with a /up health check endpoint at GET /up. This route runs the CheckDatabaseConnectionIsActive check and returns 200 if healthy.

Monitor it directly:

Monitor: GET https://yourapp.com/up
Type: HTTP(S)
Expected status: 200
Check interval: 1 minute
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If you're on Laravel 9 or earlier, create a simple health route:

// routes/web.php
Route::get('/health', function () {
    return response()->json([
        'status' => 'ok',
        'db' => DB::select('SELECT 1') ? 'connected' : 'disconnected',
        'timestamp' => now()->toISOString(),
    ]);
})->name('health');
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Step 2: Monitor Queue Workers with Heartbeat Checks

Queue workers dying silently is one of the most dangerous Laravel production issues. Jobs pile up, user-facing features break, but your app URL stays 200.

Solution: Heartbeat monitoring

In your most frequently queued job (or a dedicated heartbeat job), add a Vigilmon heartbeat ping:

// app/Jobs/QueueHeartbeat.php
class QueueHeartbeat implements ShouldQueue
{
    public function handle(): void
    {
        Http::get('https://hb.vigilmon.online/YOUR_HEARTBEAT_ID');
    }
}
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Schedule it every 5 minutes:

// app/Console/Kernel.php
$schedule->job(new QueueHeartbeat)->everyFiveMinutes();
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In Vigilmon, create a heartbeat monitor with a 10-minute grace window. If the ping doesn't arrive within 10 minutes, Vigilmon alerts you.

Step 3: Monitor Laravel Scheduler (Cron)

Laravel scheduler runs all your scheduled tasks via a single cron entry:

* * * * * cd /path/to/your/project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1
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If this cron entry breaks (permission issue, wrong path, server restart), all scheduled tasks stop silently.

Create a sentinel command that pings Vigilmon:

// app/Console/Commands/SchedulerHeartbeat.php
class SchedulerHeartbeat extends Command
{
    protected $signature = 'scheduler:heartbeat';

    public function handle(): void
    {
        Http::get('https://hb.vigilmon.online/YOUR_SCHEDULER_HEARTBEAT_ID');
    }
}
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Schedule it every minute:

$schedule->command('scheduler:heartbeat')->everyMinute();
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Now create a Vigilmon heartbeat monitor with a 2-minute deadline. If it misses two consecutive pings, you get alerted.

Step 4: Monitor Horizon

If you use Laravel Horizon, monitor the Horizon dashboard availability:

Monitor: GET https://yourapp.com/horizon
Type: HTTP(S)
Expected status: 200
Keyword check: "Horizon"
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For Horizon's health API:

Monitor: GET https://yourapp.com/horizon/api/stats
Type: HTTP(S)
Expected status: 200
Keyword check: "jobsPerMinute"
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You can also add a Horizon health check to Laravel's health endpoint:

use Laravel\Horizon\Contracts\MasterSupervisorRepository;

Route::get('/health/horizon', function () {
    $masters = app(MasterSupervisorRepository::class)->all();
    $running = collect($masters)->filter(fn($m) => $m->status === 'running');

    return response()->json([
        'status' => $running->isNotEmpty() ? 'ok' : 'degraded',
        'masters' => $running->count(),
    ], $running->isNotEmpty() ? 200 : 503);
});
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Step 5: Monitor Critical API Routes

Monitor the API routes that your users depend on most:

Monitor: GET https://yourapp.com/api/v1/status
Type: HTTP(S)
Expected status: 200
Keyword check: "ok"
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For authenticated routes, use Vigilmon's custom header support to include a pre-generated token:

Monitor: GET https://yourapp.com/api/v1/dashboard/summary
Headers: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_MONITORING_TOKEN
Expected status: 200
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Create a dedicated read-only monitoring user in your users table for this purpose.

Step 6: Set Up Alerts

Configure Vigilmon to alert the right channels:

  • Queue down: immediate Slack DM to backend engineer
  • Scheduler missed: immediate email + Slack
  • App URL down: PagerDuty escalation
  • API route slow (>2s): Slack warning, no page

Vigilmon supports webhook alerts, so you can integrate with any alerting stack.

Recommended Monitor Set

Monitor URL/Type Alert
App URL GET / Down → immediate
Health endpoint GET /up Down → immediate
Queue heartbeat Heartbeat 10-min miss → immediate
Scheduler heartbeat Heartbeat 2-min miss → immediate
Horizon dashboard GET /horizon Down → immediate
Primary API route GET /api/v1/status Down → immediate

Start Monitoring in 5 Minutes

Vigilmon takes 5 minutes to set up — add your URLs, configure heartbeat monitors for your queue and scheduler, and connect your Slack or email for alerts.

→ Monitor your Laravel app for free

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