Fix a health check that checks nothing

My /health route just says OK. It never checks the database.

BeginnerRead 4 minDoing: about 30 minutes5 steps

▶ Start

What you'll have at the end

A /health endpoint that checks the database and cache and names which one is down

Before you start

You need

A service whose /health route only returns a flat 200, plus an async database connection and a cache client the app already uses for real requests.

Not covered

Wiring your specific deployment platform's own restart and traffic-routing rules to the two endpoints this builds, once they exist.

Leans on

Make each check honest

Time-box a real database ping
Check the cache without failing everything
Run both checks at the same time

Turn results into something worth acting on

Turn two results into one honest answer
Give restarts their own separate check

Where to go next

Alert fatigue from paging on causes instead of symptoms

go there once this endpoint exists, to decide which of its states, down versus degraded, should actually wake someone up instead of just sitting on a dashboard

Checked 19 Aug 2026

Part of the Backend Observability and Monitoring cookbook