Add npm run cron:dev to drive the dispatcher locally

[7174Andy]

Problem

Nothing calls /api/cron/execute on localhost. Production points cron-job.org at the deployed URL and vercel.json declares no crons, so in development a due schedule stays pending indefinitely — scheduledAt is a WHERE filter in getDueScheduleIds, not a timer.

This presents as a bug ("my scheduled job never fired") when it's really a missing caller. I lost time to exactly this before tracing it.

Approach

The README already documented a hand-rolled curl loop. This wraps it as npm run cron:dev so it's one command, and so the traps it hides get handled:

• Loads .env.local ahead of .env, matching Next's precedence and scripts/prisma.mjs. Those files can hold different CRON_SECRETs, and calling with the wrong one returns 401 — which also looks like "the job never fired". On a 401 the script names that cause instead of printing a bare status code.
• Ticks before its first sleep, so Ctrl-C after one line gives you a single tick. That's why there's no --once flag.
• Sequential, not setInterval, so a slow tick can't overlap itself. Keeps going when the dev server is down or mid-restart.

Also corrects the README, which promised raw JSON the script doesn't print and described calling the endpoint repeatedly by hand.

Safety

This calls the real dispatcher — it dispatches real workflow_dispatch runs against real repositories. It is not a simulation. The script says so on startup and the README says so twice, because the failure mode (a surprise run against a production repo) is unpleasant.

Testing

npx tsc --noEmit clean, npx eslint . clean, npx vitest run 84 passing.

Exercised the 401 path, the unreachable-server path, and loop iteration (via CRON_DEV_INTERVAL_MS=200). The success path is untested — any successful call dispatches a real workflow run, so I didn't trigger one.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
gitcron	Ready	Preview	Aug 2, 2026 2:24am