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Every 5 minutes

Monitor websites from a sheet with email alerts

You get an email when a site in your sheet goes down, and every outage is logged in the same sheet.

Runs
Every 5 minutes
Apps
Gmail, Google Sheets
AI
Not needed
Access
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.send

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 5 minutes, check each URL in my Sites sheet. If one is down, email me and add a row to the Outages tab.

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 one-person agency hosts sites for local businesses: a dentist, two restaurants, a plumber. When a site goes down, the first sign is often a client email the next morning. There is no record of how long it was down or how often it happens.

Checking each site every few minutes and emailing on failure means you hear first, and the log tab gives you the history to discuss with the host or the client.

What you get out of it

  • You find out before clients do

    An email within minutes of an outage gives you time to fix the problem or warn the client before customers notice.

  • Evidence for hosting complaints

    Each outage is recorded with its time, so you can show a host exactly when and how often sites failed.

  • Add a site by adding a row

    Monitoring a new client means typing their address into the sheet. There is no separate tool to configure.

  • Alerts to the inbox you already check

    Email works on any phone without another app, which suits people who are not in a team chat all day.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 5 minutes ClickRuntime reads the list of websites from your Sites sheet in Google Sheets.

  2. It visits each site and checks whether it responds.

  3. When a site goes down or comes back, you get an email saying which site and when.

  4. Each change is added as a row in the Outages tab, so you keep a full history.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google through your own Google app (a one-time, 10-minute setup), so it works with your own Gmail
  • Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsEvery 5 minutes
Monitor websites from a sheet with email alertstoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · Site alerthttps://northwind-dental.example is DOWN. Checked at 14:05 UTC.

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 Gmail and Google Sheets 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.
website_uptime_monitor_from_a_sheet.pyexample
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify

SHEET_ID = "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    sheets = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False)
    urls = [r[0] for r in sheets.spreadsheets().values().get(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Sites!A2:A").execute().get("values", []) if r]
    status, rows = state.get("status") or {}, []
    for url in urls:
        try:
            up = http.get(url, timeout=10).status_code < 500
        except Exception:
            up = False
        if url in status and status[url] != up:
            notify.email_me(f"{url} is {'back up' if up else 'DOWN'}", f"Checked at {datetime.now(timezone.utc):%H:%M} UTC.")
            rows.append([datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat(timespec="minutes"), url, "up" if up else "down"])
        status[url] = up
    if rows:
        sheets.spreadsheets().values().append(spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Outages!A:C",
                                              valueInputOption="USER_ENTERED", body={"values": rows}).execute()
    state.set("status", status)
    return {"checked": len(urls), "changes": len(rows)}

FAQ

Common questions

Will I get an email every 5 minutes during a long outage?
No. You get one email when a site goes down and another when it comes back, so a long outage does not flood your inbox.
What counts as down?
No response within about ten seconds, a failed connection or a server error. Pages that load but show an error message can be caught by requiring a word on the page.
Can it check pages behind a login?
It checks public pages only. For a members area, monitor the login page itself, which shows whether the site is answering.
What permissions does it need?
Sheets read+write; Gmail gmail.send. 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). 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.

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