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Every 5 minutes

Get failed Render deploys posted to Slack

Within 5 minutes of a build or update failing, the service and deploy show up in your Slack channel.

Runs
Every 5 minutes
Apps
Render
AI
Not needed
Access
read (the key has full access)

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 5 minutes check my Render services and post to #deploys in Slack when a deploy fails, with the service name, commit message and a link to the deploy.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A push to main triggers an automatic deploy on Render, the build fails because of a missing dependency, and the previous version keeps running. Everything looks normal to users, so nobody notices that the fix someone pushed this afternoon never went live. The mistake is discovered the next day when a customer reports the bug again.

Every 5 minutes, ClickRuntime lists your Render services, checks the latest deploy for each, keeps those with a status of build_failed or update_failed, and posts them to Slack with the service name and a link. It remembers what it already reported, so a single failure is announced once.

It suits any team that deploys automatically on push and wants failures to be visible to the people who caused them, soon after they happen.

What you get out of it

  • Developers learn within minutes

    A failed build reported five minutes after the push reaches the author while the change is still in their head. Fixing it then takes far less effort than after a context switch.

  • Silent failures stop hiding

    Because the old version keeps serving traffic, a failed deploy can look like success. The alert makes it clear that the latest change is not live, which prevents false confidence.

  • Teams share responsibility

    A failure in a shared channel is visible to everyone. Colleagues can help or take over if the author is away, and nobody is left unaware of a blocked release. Nobody is left guessing why a release is stuck.

  • Customer-facing fixes land on time

    When a deploy carries an urgent fix, knowing at once that it failed is the difference between a quick retry and a customer waiting another day for a correction. A quick retry saves a day.

  • Reduced time watching dashboards

    Developers no longer need to watch the Render dashboard after each push. They can move on knowing they will hear about a problem, which keeps focus on the next task.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every five minutes ClickRuntime checks the latest deploys of each of your Render services.

  2. It keeps only deploys where the build or update failed, and skips any it has already posted.

  3. Your Slack channel gets the service, the reason, the commit message and a link to the deploy.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Render

What you get

RunsEvery 5 minutes
Get failed Render deploys posted to Slacktoday, 9:00Succeeded
Slack · #deploysDeploy failed: api-server (build_failed) Bump pg driver to 8.12 https://dashboard.render.com/web/srv-…/deploys/dep-…

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Render steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
get_alerted_on_failed_deploys.pyexample
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify, state, report_fetched

RENDER = "https://api.render.com/v1"

def render(path, **params):
    resp = http.get(f"{RENDER}{path}", params=params, headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.secret('RENDER_API_KEY')}"})
    resp.raise_for_status()
    return resp.json()

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    failed = []
    for item in render("/services", limit=100):
        svc = item["service"]
        for d in render(f"/services/{svc['id']}/deploys", limit=5):
            dep = d["deploy"]
            if dep["status"] in ("build_failed", "update_failed") and dep["id"] not in seen:
                failed.append((svc, dep))
    report_fetched(len(failed))
    if not failed:
        return {"failed": 0}
    for svc, dep in failed:
        notify.slack(f"Deploy failed: {svc['name']} ({dep['status']})\n{(dep.get('commit') or {}).get('message', '')}\n"
                     f"{svc['dashboardUrl']}/deploys/{dep['id']}", channel="#deploys")
    state.set("seen", list(seen | {dep["id"] for _, dep in failed})[-500:])
    return {"failed": len(failed)}

FAQ

Common questions

Why check every 5 minutes instead of using a webhook?
Polling works on any Render account without webhook setup, and a five-minute delay is acceptable for build failures. If you prefer immediate notices, Render webhooks can send deploy events to the same alert, which avoids the interval.
What do build_failed and update_failed mean?
A build_failed deploy means the build step did not complete, for example because of a compile error or missing dependency. An update_failed deploy means the build worked but the new version did not start or pass health checks.
Will I get alerts for preview environments too?
Only if they are included in the services the alert checks. Preview environments create their own deploys on pull requests, which can fail often during development. Most teams limit alerts to production services to keep the channel useful.
What permissions does it need?
read (the key has full access). Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Get failed Render deploys posted to Slack” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.