Cron Checker
The Cron Checker tool (internal name builtin_system_cron) is a read-only diagnostic for the Magento cron scheduler. It reports overall health and per-group heartbeat, detects failing, stuck, and never-scheduled jobs, and returns bounded job run history with error messages.
Access control
Access to this tool is controlled by the MCP Tools -> Built in -> System -> Cron Checker ACL resource. Enable or disable it in System -> Permissions -> User Roles -> [Role] -> Role Resources.
When to use
The AI client uses this tool to answer questions such as "is cron running?", "why didn't job X run?", or "show errors for job Y". It is the first stop when reindexing, email sending, or other scheduled work appears stalled.
Parameters
| Parameter | Description | Type | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
action | The operation to perform. One of status, jobs. | string | Yes |
module | Filter jobs by module (e.g. Magento_Indexer). | string | No |
job_code | jobs action only. Substring match on the job code. When given, the tool returns recent run history rows for matching jobs instead of the summary table. | string | No |
status | jobs summaries only. Filter by run status: success, error, or running. | string | No |
limit | Maximum rows to return. For summaries: default 20, max 100. For run history (when job_code is given): default 10, max 50. | integer | No |
Example output
The status action returns:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
cron_alive | Whether the scheduler is currently running |
last_success | Timestamp of the most recent successful job |
schedule_generation | Number of pending (not yet executed) schedule rows |
groups | Per-group last-success age |
problems | A list of detected issues, each with a type: failing, stuck, not_running, or never_scheduled |
History visibility is limited because cron_schedule rows are pruned according to each cron group's lifetime configuration. Older runs may no longer be present.
Jobs whose schedule makes them unverifiable within the six-hour check window are "not checkable". These are reported as a count rather than flagged as problems, to avoid false positives.