Email Notifications for Workflow Automation: Know When Scripts Fail (or Succeed)
The Monitoring Gap
A scheduled script runs at 2 AM. It fails. Nobody notices until someone checks the output folder the next morning and finds stale data.
This is the monitoring gap in local automation. Most developers schedule tasks with cron jobs or Task Scheduler, but those tools don’t tell anyone when something breaks. The script either ran or it didn’t, and finding out which one requires checking manually.
NORA closes that gap with built-in email notifications, an execution history UI, JSON logs with 30-day rotation, and system tray alerts — all without bolting on external monitoring tools.
Gmail OAuth2 Email Notifications
NORA sends email notifications through Gmail using OAuth2 authentication. Setup takes a few steps:
Settings → Email/Notifications → Connect Gmail
Link a Gmail account using OAuth2 (no app passwords, no SMTP credentials stored in plaintext). Once connected, NORA can send an email summary after any scheduled workflow completes.
What the Email Contains
Each notification email includes a detailed execution summary:
- Node-by-node results — which nodes ran, which succeeded, which failed
- Exit codes — the actual exit code returned by each script
- Duration — how long each node took and total workflow execution time
- Error output — stderr captured from failed nodes
- AI cost breakdown — if the workflow used AI nodes, the email includes token counts and USD cost per call, broken down by provider
- Loop iteration counts — for workflows using loop edges, the email reports how many iterations each loop completed
This is a real execution report, not a generic “your workflow ran” ping. When something fails at 2 AM, the email contains enough detail to diagnose the problem without opening the app.
Per-Schedule Notification Toggle
Not every scheduled job needs an email. A workflow that runs every five minutes to check system health would flood an inbox fast. NORA lets notifications be toggled on or off per schedule. Keep them on for critical nightly jobs. Turn them off for frequent, low-importance tasks.
Execution History UI
Email notifications cover the reactive case — something happened, and NORA sends an alert. For proactive review, NORA’s execution history UI provides a full record.
Each workflow run gets a summary entry showing:
- Success/error count — how many nodes passed vs. failed
- Total duration — wall-clock time for the entire run
- AI cost — aggregate USD spent on AI calls during the run, with a grand total footer across all runs
- Per-node detail — click into any run to see stdout, stderr, exit codes, and timing for each node individually
This history persists across app restarts. Review yesterday’s runs, last week’s runs, or look up a specific execution to see exactly what happened.
JSON Logs with 30-Day Rotation
Behind the UI, NORA writes structured JSON logs for every execution. These logs are stored locally at ~/.nora/ with 30-day rotation, with old logs cleaned up automatically.
Because the logs are JSON, they’re parseable by any tool. Pipe them into jq, load them into a script, or archive them to a shared drive. The log format includes timestamps, node IDs, exit codes, stdout/stderr content, and AI cost data.
System Tray Notifications
NORA runs in the background via the Windows system tray. When a workflow completes — whether triggered by a schedule or manually — a system tray notification pops up with the result. This is useful for workflows that run while working on something else: a quick toast notification confirms the job finished without switching windows.
Monitoring Without External Dependencies
The entire monitoring stack — email, execution history, logs, tray notifications — runs locally. There’s no external service to configure, no webhook endpoint to maintain, no third-party dashboard to check. Everything is built into the app and stores data on the local machine.
Getting Started
NORA runs on Windows 10 and later. Download it from software.reibuys.com/nora and install. A paid license key is required — one-time purchase, no subscription. 30-day money-back guarantee.