An Upstart script for hekad.

hekad.conf

# hekad - http://hekad.readthedocs.org/en/latest/ -- The hekad daemon is the core component of the heka project
#
# Configure hekad in /etc/hekad.toml

start on runlevel [2345]

respawn

pre-start script
  [ -d /var/run/hekad/seekjournals/ ] || mkdir -p /var/run/hekad/seekjournals/
end script

exec /usr/bin/hekad -config=/etc/hekad.toml >> /var/log/hekad.log 2>&1

Heka doesn't use /var/run/hekad any more: mozilla-services/heka#353

Here is an improved version: https://gist.github.com/carlanton/5355845d089f36e1489d