Vercel · infra · fg-0247

Vercel cron job shows no log and does nothing because the route answers with a redirect

No runtime log for the cron path at the scheduled time

Verified 2026-10-15 · Confirmed by 0 builders · Trust 50/100

Cause

Vercel calls the production deployment with a plain GET and treats any 3xx as the final answer, and redirected or cached cron responses are hidden from the logs. Trailing slash rewrites, auth middleware, or locale redirects on the cron path make the job silently finish without running.

Fix

Exclude the cron path from middleware redirects, use the exact path the router serves, and authenticate the call with the CRON_SECRET bearer header instead of a session check.

Apply

// middleware.ts
export const config = { matcher: ['/((?!api/cron).*)'] };

// app/api/cron/route.ts
export function GET(req: Request) {
  if (req.headers.get('authorization') !== `Bearer ${process.env.CRON_SECRET}`) return new Response('Unauthorized', { status: 401 });
  return Response.json({ ok: true });
}

Affects: Vercel Cron Jobs on all plans, production deployments only, as of October 2026

Sources

• https://vercel.com/docs/cron-jobs/manage-cron-jobs
• https://vercel.com/docs/cron-jobs

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