Scheduled Captures

Scheduled captures let you automate recurring snapshots of a URL. Define a cron expression, and WRL will submit a new capture at each interval without any polling or manual intervention.

Each scheduled run submits a standard capture and counts against your monthly quota. The capture artifacts, verification, and audit trail work exactly the same as manually submitted captures.

Prerequisites

• An API key with capture scope. See Authentication.

Create a schedule

Send a POST /v1/schedules request with the URL, a human-readable name, and a cron expression.

curl -X POST https://api.webresourceledger.com/v1/schedules \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "name": "Daily homepage capture",
    "cron": "0 0 * * *"
  }'

The response is 201 Created with the new schedule record.

{
  "id": "sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4",
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "name": "Daily homepage capture",
  "cron": "0 0 * * *",
  "paused": false,
  "nextRunAt": "2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "lastRunAt": null,
  "lastCaptureId": null,
  "lastCaptureStatus": null,
  "createdAt": "2026-03-23T10:00:00.000Z"
}

Save the id — you will use it to retrieve, change or delete the schedule.

List schedules

curl https://api.webresourceledger.com/v1/schedules \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4",
      "url": "https://example.com",
      "name": "Daily homepage capture",
      "cron": "0 0 * * *",
      "paused": false,
      "nextRunAt": "2026-04-01T00:00:00.000Z",
      "lastRunAt": "2026-03-31T00:00:00.000Z",
      "lastCaptureId": "cap_a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6",
      "lastCaptureStatus": "complete",
      "createdAt": "2026-03-01T10:00:00.000Z"
    }
  ]
}

lastCaptureId and lastCaptureStatus reflect the most recent run. lastCaptureStatus is pending while that capture runs, then complete or failed. It is skipped when the run was skipped because the monthly quota was used up, and blocked when the URL was flagged as unsafe. Use lastCaptureId to retrieve the full capture record or verify the artifact.

To see only captures triggered by a specific schedule, add the schedule_id filter when listing captures:

curl "https://api.webresourceledger.com/v1/captures?schedule_id=sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Edit, pause or resume a schedule

Send only the fields you want to change. url and cron go through the same checks as when you create a schedule.

curl -X PATCH https://api.webresourceledger.com/v1/schedules/sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"cron": "0 6,18 * * *", "name": "Homepage twice daily"}'

The response is the updated schedule.

To pause, send {"paused": true}. A paused schedule makes no captures and has no next run. To resume, send {"paused": false}: the next run is the next time the cron matches from now, so runs missed while paused are not made up. A new cron also sets the next run from now.

If you change the url, change detection starts over: the first capture of the new URL has no previous capture to compare with.

In the dashboard, each schedule has Pause/Resume and Edit buttons, and Captures shows only the captures that schedule made. AI agents can use the MCP tool update_schedule, and list_captures with schedule_id.

Delete a schedule

curl -X DELETE https://api.webresourceledger.com/v1/schedules/sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

{
  "id": "sch_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4",
  "deleted": true
}

Deletion is permanent. Any capture currently in progress from the schedule's last run is not affected. The schedule will not trigger any further captures after deletion.

Cron expression format

Schedules use standard 5-field cron syntax:

+------------ minute (0-59)
|   +-------- hour (0-23)
|   |   +---- day of month (1-31)
|   |   |   + month (1-12)
|   |   |   | +- day of week (0-7, where 0 and 7 are Sunday)
|   |   |   | |
*   *   *   * *

Minimum interval: 1 hour. Expressions that would fire more than once per hour are rejected with 400.

Common patterns:

All times are UTC. There is no DST adjustment.

Schedule limits

Each tenant has a maximum number of schedules, and paused schedules count toward it. If you reach the limit, POST /v1/schedules returns 429 with limitType: "schedules" in the response body. Delete a schedule to free up a slot.

Quota impact

Each scheduled run submits one capture. Scheduled captures count against your monthly quota exactly the same as manually submitted captures. If your quota is exhausted when a schedule fires, that run is skipped and lastCaptureStatus becomes skipped. On the free tier, WRL emails you once that month that the limit was reached. Pause a schedule if you don't want it to use quota for a while.

For current quota status, see GET /v1/account/usage or the Limits & Quotas guide.