diff --git a/backend/deploy.dockerfile b/backend/deploy.dockerfile
index e7dceae13..a9eeb5cbc 100644
--- a/backend/deploy.dockerfile
+++ b/backend/deploy.dockerfile
@@ -12,6 +12,11 @@ COPY requirements.txt .
 COPY pyproject.toml .
 COPY alembic.ini.example alembic.ini
 COPY scripts/entry.sh scripts/entry.sh
+COPY scripts/cron /etc/cron.d/appointment-cron
+
+# Setup cron permissions
+RUN chmod 0644 /etc/cron.d/appointment-cron
+RUN crontab /etc/cron.d/appointment-cron
 
 # Needed for deploy, we don't have a volume attached
 COPY src .
@@ -25,5 +30,6 @@ RUN pip install .'[deploy]'
 RUN mkdir src
 RUN ln -s /app/appointment src/appointment
 
+
 EXPOSE 5000
 CMD ["/bin/sh", "./scripts/entry.sh"]
diff --git a/backend/requirements.txt b/backend/requirements.txt
index e4e109408..4845f23ca 100644
--- a/backend/requirements.txt
+++ b/backend/requirements.txt
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ sentry-sdk==1.26.0
 starlette-context==0.3.6
 sqlalchemy-utils==0.39.0
 sqlalchemy==1.4.40
+typer[all]==0.9.0
 tzdata==2022.7
 uvicorn==0.20.0
 validators==0.20.0
diff --git a/backend/scripts/dev-entry.sh b/backend/scripts/dev-entry.sh
index 1425bbd1b..dfbb91f40 100644
--- a/backend/scripts/dev-entry.sh
+++ b/backend/scripts/dev-entry.sh
@@ -1,10 +1,13 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-run-command update-db
+run-command main update-db
 
 # Start up fake mail server
 python -u -m smtpd -n -c DebuggingServer localhost:8050 &
 
+# Start cron
+service cron start
+
 # Start up real webserver
 uvicorn --factory appointment.main:server --reload --host 0.0.0.0 --port 5173
 
diff --git a/backend/scripts/entry.sh b/backend/scripts/entry.sh
index 721b462dd..883c736eb 100644
--- a/backend/scripts/entry.sh
+++ b/backend/scripts/entry.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-run-command update-db
+run-command main update-db
 
 uvicorn --factory appointment.main:server --host 0.0.0.0 --port 5000
diff --git a/backend/src/appointment/main.py b/backend/src/appointment/main.py
index 8be487a8e..abb78bde7 100644
--- a/backend/src/appointment/main.py
+++ b/backend/src/appointment/main.py
@@ -20,12 +20,12 @@
 import logging
 import sys
 
+import typer
 from fastapi import FastAPI
 from fastapi.middleware.cors import CORSMiddleware
 from fastapi.exception_handlers import (
     http_exception_handler,
 )
-from starlette_context import context
 
 import sentry_sdk
 
@@ -136,20 +136,15 @@ async def catch_google_refresh_errors(request, exc):
 
 def cli():
     """
-    A very simple cli handler
+    Entrypoint for our typer cli
     """
 
-    if len(sys.argv) < 2:
-        print("No command specified")
-        return
-
     # Run common setup first
     _common_setup()
 
-    command = sys.argv[1:]
-
-    if command[0] == 'update-db':
-        from .commands import update_db
-        update_db.run()
-
+    from .routes import commands
 
+    app = typer.Typer()
+    # We don't have too many commands, so just dump them under main for now.
+    app.add_typer(commands.router, name="main")
+    app()
diff --git a/backend/src/appointment/routes/commands.py b/backend/src/appointment/routes/commands.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..61b549ccb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/src/appointment/routes/commands.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+"""This file handles routing for console commands"""
+from contextlib import contextmanager
+import os
+
+import typer
+from ..commands import update_db
+
+router = typer.Typer()
+
+
+@contextmanager
+def cron_lock(lock_name):
+    """Context manager helper to create a cron lockfile or error out with FileExistsError."""
+    lock_file_name = f'/tmp/{lock_name}.lock'
+
+    # Lock file exists? Don't run
+    if os.path.isfile(lock_file_name):
+        raise FileExistsError
+
+    fh = open(lock_file_name, 'w+')
+    try:
+        yield
+    finally:
+        fh.close()
+        os.remove(lock_file_name)
+
+
+@router.command('update-db')
+def update_database():
+    update_db.run()
+
diff --git a/backend/test/unit/test_commands.py b/backend/test/unit/test_commands.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..713c891c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/test/unit/test_commands.py
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+import os
+
+import pytest
+
+from appointment.routes.commands import cron_lock
+
+
+def test_cron_lock():
+    """Test our cron lock function, this does use disk io but should clean itself up after."""
+    test_lock_name = 'test_cron_lock_run'
+    test_lock_file_name = f'/tmp/{test_lock_name}.lock'
+
+    # Clean up in case the lock file previously exists
+    if os.path.isfile(test_lock_file_name):
+        os.remove(test_lock_file_name)
+
+    # Test that the lock works
+    with cron_lock(test_lock_name):
+        assert os.path.isfile(test_lock_file_name)
+
+    # And cleans itself up
+    assert not os.path.isfile(test_lock_file_name)
+
+    # Test a lock already exists case with way too many withs.
+    with open(test_lock_file_name, 'w'):
+        with pytest.raises(FileExistsError):
+            with cron_lock(test_lock_name):
+                pass
+
+    # Remove the lock file we manually created
+    os.remove(test_lock_file_name)