Stop writing cron jobs: I built a C++ database with native temporal states

michael300607@gmail.com — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 22:43:01 +0000

Hey everyone, I'm Michael.

For the last few months, I've been building CronDB from scratch. It's a native C++ database engine designed to natively evaluate temporal state machines, meaning you don't have to write external polling scripts or cron jobs to manage state changes over time.

Under the hood:

Written entirely in C++ with a custom lexer and parser.
Evaluates FSM clock transitions directly against an O(log n) B-Tree.
Uses fixed-width binary .bin files for O(1) random-access reads.
Fully ACID compliant with a Write-Ahead Log (WAL) for durability.
Ships with an asynchronous webhook engine to push events without blocking the main thread.
Includes native Python and JavaScript SDKs for easy integration.

The Local Demo
I packaged a lightweight demo version of the engine (Windows .exe and Linux ELF) so you can boot it up and test the Temporal FSM syntax natively on your own hardware.

You can download the demo binaries here: https://crondb.dev

A quick heads-up on the demo: The binary enforces a strict 50-query limit. While it actively writes the actual WAL and binary files to your disk, the demo version does not load previous states. It will start with a completely clean slate every time you boot it up!

Deep Dive
If you want to see exactly how the storage engine, WAL, and webhook threading actually work, I wrote a full Developer Documentation PDF detailing the internal architecture:
https://crondb.dev/Architecture_guide.pdf

Please boot up the binary, try to break the temporal syntax, and drop your technical feedback or questions below! I'll be reading all of them.

Forem: michael300607@gmail.com

Stop writing cron jobs: I built a C++ database with native temporal states