title: Cannot run Cron Job on Google App Engine (Python)
body: <p>After a few days of searching and looking around for this, and I haven't been able to find the right answer.</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to run a cron job on Google App Engine (with Python). The cron job itself isn't that important, I'm just looking to run a python script every minute. For now I'm just trying to add a line with the current time in a separate text file (test.txt).</p>
  
  <p>I'm pretty sure that I don't quite understand the concept of handlers, and that's what causing me problems. But I've spent hours in the documentation, and I still can't figure it out.</p>
  
  <p>I sense that I should not be using main.py as my script for the cron job, but I have a hard time understanding what the url needs to be in cron.yaml, and what the handler/script should be.</p>
  
  <p>Please help!</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bn5QE.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/bn5QE.jpg" alt="Here&#39;s a list of my files."></a></p>
  
  <p><strong>app.yaml</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>runtime: python
  env: flex
  entrypoint: gunicorn -b :$PORT main:app
  
  runtime_config:
    python_version: 3
  
  handlers:
  - url: /main
    script: main.py
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>cron.yaml</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>cron:
  - description : most recent test
    url : /main
    schedule: every 1 minutes
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>main.py</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code># Copyright 2015 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.
  #
  # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  # you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  # You may obtain a copy of the License at
  #
  #     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
  #
  # Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  # distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  # WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  # limitations under the License.
  
  # [START app]
  import logging
  from datetime import datetime
  
  current_time = str(datetime.now())
  
  from flask import Flask
  
  
  app = Flask(__name__)
  
  
  @app.route('/')
  def hello():
      """Return a friendly HTTP greeting."""
      return 'Hello World! The time is ' + current_time
  
      message = "this worked, as of " + current_time + "\n"
  
      with open("test.txt", "a") as myfile:
          myfile.write(message)
  
  
  @app.errorhandler(500)
  def server_error(e):
      logging.exception('An error occurred during a request.')
      return """
      An internal error occurred: &lt;pre&gt;{}&lt;/pre&gt;
      See logs for full stacktrace.
      """.format(e), 500
  
  
  if __name__ == '__main__':
      # This is used when running locally. Gunicorn is used to run the
      # application on Google App Engine. See entrypoint in app.yaml.
      app.run(host='127.0.0.1', port=8080, debug=True)
  # [END app]
  </code></pre>