Every 5 minutes to every 6 hours

Get a text when your site goes down

You get one SMS when a check fails and another when it recovers, without repeats in between.

Runs: Every 5 minutes to every 6 hours
Apps: Twilio
AI: Not needed
Access: write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 5 minutes check that shop.example.com responds; if it doesn't, text me, and text again once it's back up.

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

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

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

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Some situations only matter at the moment they change: a website goes down, a stock price passes a level you care about, or a storm warning appears for tomorrow's outdoor event. Emails get lost in a crowded inbox, and checking pages by hand is a habit that fades. The person who needed to know at 2 am finds out at 8, after customers or money have been affected.

On a schedule you choose, from every five minutes to every six hours, this fetches the page, price or forecast, compares the value to your threshold and to the state it saw last time, and sends a text only when the state changes. You are not texted every five minutes while a site stays down.

Site owners, small traders and event organizers can each point it at their own check.

What you get out of it

A text reaches you when email will not
SMS interrupts in a way email does not, which is what you want for an outage or a price breakout. The alert gets read within minutes, even while you are away from your desk.
Only the change triggers a message
Because the last state is remembered, you get one text when the site goes down and one when it recovers. That keeps the alert useful instead of an endless stream of the same warning.
Choose how often to look
A shop's checkout page might be checked every five minutes, while a weather forecast needs a look every six hours. Matching the schedule to the risk avoids waste and keeps your phone from buzzing for no reason.
Covers more than uptime
The same pattern works for prices, stock availability, exchange rates or a forecast for rain above a limit. You can reuse one idea across several small monitoring jobs rather than buying separate tools.
Recovery message closes the loop
Knowing a problem has ended is as useful as knowing it began. The follow-up text lets you stop worrying and go back to sleep once the page is up again.

How it works

What happens, step by step

On the schedule you set, from every 5 minutes to every 6 hours, ClickRuntime checks your website, for example its health page.
It compares the result with what it found last time.
When the site goes down, it texts you once through Twilio. When it comes back, you get one more text saying so. Nothing is sent in between.

Before it runs live

Connect Twilio

What you get

RunsEvery 5 minutes to every 6 hours

Get a text when your site goes downtoday, 9:00Succeeded

SMS · +44 7700 900123https://status.example.com/health is DOWN

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

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
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 Twilio 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.

sms_alert_when_a_check_crosses_a_threshold.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state

URL = "https://status.example.com/health"
MY_NUMBER, FROM = "+447700900123", "+447700900000"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    try:
        ok = http.get(URL, timeout=10).status_code == 200
    except Exception:
        ok = False
    was_ok = state.get("ok")
    state.set("ok", ok)
    if was_ok is None or ok == was_ok:
        return {"ok": ok, "changed": False}
    sid = credentials.secret("TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID")
    http.post(f"https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{sid}/Messages.json",
              auth=(sid, credentials.secret("TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN")),
              data={"To": MY_NUMBER, "From": FROM, "Body": f"{URL} is {'back up' if ok else 'DOWN'}"})
    return {"ok": ok, "changed": True}

FAQ

Common questions

How quickly will I know a site is down?

As quickly as your schedule allows. With a five-minute check, you are usually told within five minutes of the failure. It is a simple check, not a replacement for a full monitoring service with multiple locations.

Can I watch a price on any website?

It works where the price is available as text on a page or through a public data source. Some sites block automated requests or change their layout, so check the first few results to make sure the value is read correctly.

Will I get texts all night?

Only when something changes. If you do not want overnight messages, you can set quiet hours so alerts wait until morning, but for outages you may prefer the overnight alert, so it is your choice.

What permissions does it need?

write. 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 runs (every 5 minutes to every 6 hours). Checks that find nothing to do 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.

Daily