Build Hyperping

YESreplaces $29/mosaves $348/yrback to the verdict

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Saved on this device only. Tick prerequisites first, then work the phases in order · do not start one until the checks above it pass.

An uptime monitor with a public status page: checks on their own intervals with real timeouts, down only after consecutive failures, one chat message per transition, and a status page with uptime percentages, latency sparklines and an RSS feed of incidents. From one box, so the page says so.

estimated effort one sittingthe files for this build are in the project pack

RuntimeNode 22 with node:http, node:sqlite and fetchDatabaseSQLite in WAL modeAlertsOne chat webhookHostingA VPS on a different provider than the sites

Before step 1

Everything below is assumed from the first step. Tick each one when you actually have it, not when you plan to.

installfree
Why Everything in this build runs on it: the server, the scripts, the tests.
Get it Download the LTS installer from nodejs.org, or install with your package manager (brew install node, or nvm install 22). Restart the terminal afterwards. open ↗
Verify node --version prints v22 or higher
installfree
Why Every step below is a command you type or a file you edit.
Get it VS Code (code.visualstudio.com), Cursor or Zed. Open a folder for the project and use the editor's built-in terminal. open ↗
Verify You can open a folder and run a command in its terminal
installfree
Why History for your code, and the way most hosts deploy.
Get it Install from git-scm.com or with your package manager, then run git init in the project folder once it exists. open ↗
Verify git --version prints a version
API keyfree
Why Alerts go to a chat channel you already watch. A webhook URL is the only credential this needs.
Get it Discord: Server settings > Integrations > Webhooks > New Webhook, copy the URL. Slack: create an app at api.slack.com/apps, enable Incoming Webhooks, add to a channel, copy the URL. Telegram: create a bot with @BotFather and use the bot token plus your chat id. open ↗
Verify curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"content":"test"}' <url> posts a message (Discord form; Slack uses a text field)
have readyfree
Why Defines what healthy means per monitor.
Get it List them with an interval (60 or 300 seconds).
accountabout $5 a month
Why A monitor next to what it watches is silent exactly when needed.
Get it Smallest Ubuntu 24.04 instance elsewhere. open ↗
accountroughly $10 a year, or free on an existing domain
Why status.yourdomain.com for the public page.
Get it Register at Cloudflare Registrar, Porkbun or Namecheap, or use a subdomain of one you already own. You add one DNS record in the deploy phase. open ↗
installfree
Why Automatic HTTPS in front of the Node process. Without TLS the browser features this relies on (and your visitors' trust) do not work.
Get it On the VPS: follow the install steps at caddyserver.com/docs/install for Ubuntu. One Caddyfile with your domain and a reverse_proxy line is the whole config. open ↗
Verify caddy version prints a version on the server

Data model

Create these before the first phase that stores anything. Changing a table later is the expensive kind of change.

- monitors: id, name, url, interval_seconds, timeout_ms, expected_status, keyword, enabled, status ('unknown' | 'up' | 'down'), consecutive_failures, last_checked_at, last_change_at
- checks: id, monitor_id, checked_at, ok, status_code, latency_ms, error
- incidents: id, monitor_id, started_at, ended_at, cause

Index checks(monitor_id, checked_at). Incidents are their own table on purpose: uptime percentage comes from checks, "how long and why" comes from incidents, and deriving the second from the first at read time gets slow and wrong.

Environment variables

These go in a .env file the app reads at startup. The pack's .env.example is this table as a file · copy it, never commit the filled-in version.

Variable	Needed	Example	Where the value comes from
`PORT`	required	`3000`	Any free port.
`DATABASE_PATH`	required	`./data/status.db`	SQLite file.
`ALERT_WEBHOOK_URL`secret	required	`https://...`	Chat webhook.
`ALERT_FORMAT`	required	`discord`	discord, slack or telegram.
`FAILURES_BEFORE_DOWN`	optional	`2`	Consecutive failures before down.
`SITE_URL`	required	`https://status.yourdomain.com`	Public base for the page and feed.
`ADMIN_USER`	required	`admin`	Any username for the basic-auth admin pages.
`ADMIN_PASS`secret	required	`change-me-to-a-long-random-string`	Generate one: openssl rand -base64 24. Never reuse a real password.

The build, in order

1
The check
A fetch with a timeout that fires and errors you can tell apart.
1. monitors, checks (indexed on monitor_id, checked_at), incidents.
  terminal
  mkdir statuspage && cd statuspage && git init && npm init -y && npm pkg set type=module mkdir -p data && cp .env.example .env
done when · tick each as it passes
next phase
2
Scheduler and transitions
Own intervals, capped concurrency, incidents that open and close.
done when · tick each as it passes
next phase
3
Alerting
Once down, once up with duration.
done when · tick each as it passes
next phase
4
Status page
Numbers with denominators, a sparkline, and a feed.
done when · tick each as it passes
next phase
5
Retention and deploy
Prune checks, keep incidents, live behind HTTPS.
2. Files README.md
done when · tick each as it passes
next phase
6
Operate it like a productproduct builder
Only for the product-builder path: know when the monitor is down, never lose the database, and keep the server patched.
1. Answer 200 with the build id and a quick database read. Point a free uptime monitor (or your own, from the Healthchecks entry on this site) at it so an outage is noticed before a user notices.
2. One JSON line per request: method, path, status, duration, no raw IPs. Rotate weekly with logrotate, keep eight.
3. SQLite's .backup command makes a consistent copy while the app runs. Copy it to object storage or a second machine; then, once, restore it into a fresh checkout and confirm the app reads it.
  terminal
  sqlite3 data/app.db ".backup '/tmp/app-$(date +%F).db'" rclone copy /tmp/app-$(date +%F).db remote:backups/
4. Firewall allowing only 22, 80 and 443; unattended security updates on; the app running as an unprivileged user under systemd with Restart=on-failure.
done when · tick each as it passes

what this build does not replace

Multi-region probes; the page says so.
Subscriber notifications, incident templates, on-call.
multi-region probes that separate "the site is down" from "my box is down"
30-second intervals without hammering from one IP
incident management and subscriber notifications
a status page nobody has to host

after v1, if you want it

A second probe location that must agree
Maintenance windows

Need the files? The project pack on the verdict page hands your agent the whole brief · more uptime.