fix(lifecycle): reduce idle Neon wakeups

apps/lifecycle/README.md

@@ -46,11 +46,25 @@ acceptance of the first; the third is due five business days after acceptance of
 the second. Weekends are skipped; public holidays are not excluded in V1.
 Each target date resolves its own Pacific offset, preserving 07:00 across DST.
 
-Due times are persisted in Growth jobs. The existing cron leases campaign sends
-only Monday–Friday during 07:00–08:00 Pacific; final authorization and provider
+Due times are persisted in Growth jobs. The website's fallback cron invokes
+lifecycle every 15 minutes (UTC minutes 00, 15, 30 and 45), rather than opening
+Dawn and Growth on every idle minute. Requested form fulfillment still nudges
+lifecycle immediately after the submission commits. Background retries and
+research cleanup/reconciliation wait for a subsequent tick, potentially adding
+up to 15 minutes plus execution time; execution deadlines and lease durations
+are unchanged. Other traffic can keep a compute active, so fewer invocations
+do not guarantee a proportional reduction in Neon CU-hours.
+
+The cron leases campaign sends only Monday–Friday during 07:00–08:00 Pacific;
+final authorization and provider
 submission recheck the window. Normal sends begin on the first successful cron
-tick after 07:00. Retries can run within that hour; missed windows wait until the
-next weekday morning. Stops, mailbox recovery and ambiguous provider acceptance
+tick at or after 07:00. The schedule includes 07:00, 07:15, 07:30 and 07:45
+Pacific under either daylight-saving offset. The default batch size of 20 means
+the four scheduled ticks can lease at most 80 jobs in that hour, shared across
+all job kinds; nudges may add runs but are not guaranteed capacity. Review due
+queue size before expanding the campaign cohort. Retries can run within that
+hour; missed windows wait until the next weekday morning. Stops, mailbox
+recovery and ambiguous provider acceptance
 remain authoritative. Requested fulfillment and internal notifications do not
 use this campaign window. Replayed acceptance cannot move later jobs earlier.
 

apps/website/src/app/api/cron/lifecycle/route.spec.ts

@@ -128,12 +128,12 @@ describe('GET /api/cron/lifecycle', () => {
     expect(invoke).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
   });
 
-  it('registers exactly one every-minute root Vercel cron without public secrets', () => {
+  it('registers one fifteen-minute fallback cron so idle Dawn computes can suspend', () => {
     const config = JSON.parse(
       readFileSync(resolve(REPOSITORY_ROOT, 'vercel.json'), 'utf8')
     ) as Record<string, unknown>;
     expect(config['crons']).toEqual([
-      { path: '/api/cron/lifecycle', schedule: '* * * * *' },
+      { path: '/api/cron/lifecycle', schedule: '*/15 * * * *' },
     ]);
     expect(JSON.stringify(config)).not.toMatch(
       /NEXT_PUBLIC_(?:CRON|LIFECYCLE)/u

docs/growth/README.md

@@ -80,9 +80,15 @@ explicit operator action; a smoke command without `DRY_RUN=1` can publish.
 
 ## Schedules and measurement limits
 
-The website Vercel cron invokes lifecycle every minute. Due times live in Growth
-jobs. The founder sequence starts the next business morning at 07:00 Pacific;
-later steps are three and five business days after the preceding accepted send.
+The website Vercel cron invokes lifecycle every 15 minutes, at UTC minutes
+00, 15, 30 and 45. This reduces scheduled Dawn executions from 1,440 to 96 per
+day and allows idle computes to suspend between ticks when no other activity
+keeps them awake. Forms still nudge lifecycle immediately after their durable
+submission; the cron is the fallback when that nudge fails. Background retries,
+projection and research reconciliation can wait up to 15 minutes plus execution
+time. Due times live in Growth jobs. The founder sequence starts the next
+business morning at 07:00 Pacific; later steps are three and five business days
+after the preceding accepted send.
 The send window is 07:00–08:00 Pacific, weekdays, with daylight-saving handling.
 Requested fulfillment and internal notifications use their own execution rules.
 See [lifecycle operations](../../apps/lifecycle/README.md).

vercel.json

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
   "crons": [
     {
       "path": "/api/cron/lifecycle",
-      "schedule": "* * * * *"
+      "schedule": "*/15 * * * *"
     }
   ]
 }