---
title: "Recipe: Scheduled Cleanup"
description: "Delete expired teenybase records on a schedule by calling an action from an external cron: GitHub Actions, cron-job.org or a Workers Cron Trigger."
url: https://teenybase.com/docs/recipes/scheduled-cleanup
last_updated: 2026-04-19
---

> Documentation index: https://teenybase.com/llms.txt lists every teenybase docs page with a link to its Markdown version. All docs in one file: https://teenybase.com/llms-full.txt

# Scheduled Cleanup via External Cron

Delete expired records on a schedule by calling an action from an external cron service (GitHub Actions, cron-job.org, or a Cloudflare Worker Cron Trigger).

### Config

```typescript
actions: [{
    name: 'cleanup_expired',
    description: 'Delete records older than 30 days',
    requireAuth: true,
    guard: 'auth.role == "service"',  // only callable by a service account
    applyTableRules: false,
    sql: [
        {
            type: 'DELETE',
            table: 'sessions',
            where: sql`created < datetime('now', '-30 days')`,
            returning: ['*'],
        },
        {
            type: 'DELETE',
            table: 'request_log',
            where: sql`created < datetime('now', '-7 days')`,
            returning: ['*'],
        },
    ],
}]
```

### Call from a cron

```bash
# Create a service account with role "service" via PocketUI or direct INSERT
# Then call with that account's token:

curl -X POST https://your-app.example.com/api/v1/action/cleanup_expired \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <service-account-token>'
# → [[{...expired sessions...}], [{...expired logs...}]]
```

### GitHub Actions example

```yaml
# .github/workflows/cleanup.yml
name: Scheduled Cleanup
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 3 * * *'  # daily at 3am UTC
jobs:
  cleanup:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: |
          curl -X POST https://your-app.example.com/api/v1/action/cleanup_expired \
            -H 'Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.SERVICE_TOKEN }}'
```