The trigger.config.ts file

The trigger.config.ts file is used to configure your Trigger.dev project. It is a TypeScript file at the root of your project that exports a default configuration object. Here’s an example:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  // Your project ref (you can see it on the Project settings page in the dashboard)
  project: "<project ref>",
  //The paths for your trigger folders
  dirs: ["./trigger"],
  retries: {
    //If you want to retry a task in dev mode (when using the CLI)
    enabledInDev: false,
    //the default retry settings. Used if you don't specify on a task.
    default: {
      maxAttempts: 3,
      minTimeoutInMs: 1000,
      maxTimeoutInMs: 10000,
      factor: 2,
      randomize: true,
    },
  },
});

The config file handles a lot of things, like:

Specifying where your trigger tasks are located using the dirs option.
Setting the default retry settings.
Configuring OpenTelemetry instrumentations.
Customizing the build process.
Adding global task lifecycle functions.

The config file is bundled with your project, so code imported in the config file is also bundled, which can have an effect on build times and cold start duration. One important qualification is anything defined in the build config is automatically stripped out of the config file, and imports used inside build config with be tree-shaken out.

Dirs

You can specify the directories where your tasks are located using the dirs option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  dirs: ["./trigger"],
});

If you omit the dirs option, we will automatically detect directories that are named trigger in your project, but we recommend specifying the directories explicitly. The dirs option is an array of strings, so you can specify multiple directories if you have tasks in multiple locations.

We will search for TypeScript and JavaScript files in the specified directories and include them in the build process. We automatically exclude files that have .test or .spec in the name, but you can customize this by specifying glob patterns in the ignorePatterns option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  dirs: ["./trigger"],
  ignorePatterns: ["**/*.my-test.ts"],
});

Lifecycle functions

You can add lifecycle functions to get notified when any task starts, succeeds, or fails using onStart, onSuccess and onFailure:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  onSuccess: async (payload, output, { ctx }) => {
    console.log("Task succeeded", ctx.task.id);
  },
  onFailure: async (payload, error, { ctx }) => {
    console.log("Task failed", ctx.task.id);
  },
  onStart: async (payload, { ctx }) => {
    console.log("Task started", ctx.task.id);
  },
  init: async (payload, { ctx }) => {
    console.log("I run before any task is run");
  },
});

Read more about task lifecycle functions in the tasks overview.

Instrumentations

We use OpenTelemetry (OTEL) for our run logs. This means you get a lot of information about your tasks with no effort. But you probably want to add more information to your logs. For example, here’s all the Prisma calls automatically logged:

Here we add Prisma and OpenAI instrumentations to your trigger.config.ts file.

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { PrismaInstrumentation } from "@prisma/instrumentation";
import { OpenAIInstrumentation } from "@traceloop/instrumentation-openai";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  instrumentations: [new PrismaInstrumentation(), new OpenAIInstrumentation()],
});

There is a huge library of instrumentations you can easily add to your project like this.

Some ones we recommend:

Package	Description
`@opentelemetry/instrumentation-undici`	Logs all fetch calls (inc. Undici fetch)
`@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http`	Logs all HTTP calls
`@prisma/instrumentation`	Logs all Prisma calls, you need to enable tracing
`@traceloop/instrumentation-openai`	Logs all OpenAI calls

@opentelemetry/instrumentation-fs which logs all file system calls is currently not supported.

Runtime

We currently only officially support the node runtime, but you can try our experimental bun runtime by setting the runtime option in your config file:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  runtime: "bun",
});

See our Bun guide for more information.

Default machine

You can specify the default machine for all tasks in your project:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  defaultMachine: "large-1x",
});

See our machines documentation for more information.

Log level

You can set the log level for your project:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  logLevel: "debug",
});

The logLevel only determines which logs are sent to the Trigger.dev instance when using the logger API. All console based logs are always sent.

Max duration

You can set the default maxDuration for all tasks in your project:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  maxDuration: 60, // 60 seconds
});

See our maxDuration guide for more information.

Build configuration

You can customize the build process using the build option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    // Don't bundle these packages
    external: ["header-generator"],
  },
});

The trigger.config.ts file is included in the bundle, but with the build configuration stripped out. These means any imports only used inside the build configuration are also removed from the final bundle.

External

All code is bundled by default, but you can exclude some packages from the bundle using the external option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    external: ["header-generator"],
  },
});

When a package is excluded from the bundle, it will be added to a dynamically generated package.json file in the build directory. The version of the package will be the same as the version found in your node_modules directory.

Each entry in the external should be a package name, not necessarily the import path. For example, if you want to exclude the ai package, but you are importing ai/rsc, you should just include ai in the external array:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    external: ["ai"],
  },
});

Any packages that install or build a native binary should be added to external, as native binaries cannot be bundled. For example, re2, sharp, and sqlite3 should be added to external.

JSX

You can customize the jsx options that are passed to esbuild using the jsx option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    jsx: {
      // Use the Fragment component instead of React.Fragment
      fragment: "Fragment",
      // Use the h function instead of React.createElement
      factory: "h",
      // Turn off automatic runtime
      automatic: false,
    },
  },
});

By default we enabled esbuild’s automatic JSX runtime which means you don’t need to import React in your JSX files. You can disable this by setting automatic to false.

See the esbuild JSX documentation for more information.

Conditions

You can add custom import conditions to your build using the conditions option:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    conditions: ["react-server"],
  },
});

These conditions effect how imports are resolved during the build process. For example, the react-server condition will resolve ai/rsc to the server version of the ai/rsc export.

Custom conditions will also be passed to the node runtime when running your tasks.

Extensions

Build extension allow you to hook into the build system and customize the build process or the resulting bundle and container image (in the case of deploying). You can use pre-built extensions by installing the @trigger.dev/build package into your devDependencies, or you can create your own.

additionalFiles

Import the additionalFiles build extension and use it in your trigger.config.ts file:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { additionalFiles } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      additionalFiles({ files: ["wrangler/wrangler.toml", "./assets/**", "./fonts/**"] }),
    ],
  },
});

This will copy the files specified in the files array to the build directory. The files array can contain globs. The output paths will match the path of the file, relative to the root of the project.

The root of the project is the directory that contains the trigger.config.ts file

`additionalPackages`

Import the additionalPackages build extension and use it in your trigger.config.ts file:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { additionalPackages } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [additionalPackages({ packages: ["wrangler"] })],
  },
});

This allows you to include additional packages in the build that are not automatically included via imports. This is useful if you want to install a package that includes a CLI tool that you want to invoke in your tasks via exec. We will try to automatically resolve the version of the package but you can specify the version by using the @ symbol:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [additionalPackages({ packages: ["[email protected]"] })],
  },
});

`emitDecoratorMetadata`

If you need support for the emitDecoratorMetadata typescript compiler option, import the emitDecoratorMetadata build extension and use it in your trigger.config.ts file:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { emitDecoratorMetadata } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/typescript";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [emitDecoratorMetadata()],
  },
});

This is usually required if you are using certain ORMs, like TypeORM, that require this option to be enabled. It’s not enabled by default because there is a performance cost to enabling it.

emitDecoratorMetadata works by hooking into the esbuild bundle process and using the TypeScript compiler API to compile files where we detect the use of decorators. This means you must have emitDecoratorMetadata enabled in your tsconfig.json file, as well as typescript installed in your devDependencies.

Prisma

If you are using Prisma, you should use the prisma build extension.

Automatically handles copying prisma files to the build directory.
Generates the prisma client during the deploy process
Optionally will migrate the database during the deploy process
Support for TypedSQL and multiple schema files.

You can use it for a simple Prisma setup like this:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { prismaExtension } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/prisma";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      prismaExtension({
        version: "5.19.0", // optional, we'll automatically detect the version if not provided
        schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
      }),
    ],
  },
});

This does not have any effect when running the dev command, only when running the deploy command.

If you want to also run migrations during the build process, you can pass in the migrate option:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { prismaExtension } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/prisma";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      prismaExtension({
        schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
        migrate: true,
        directUrlEnvVarName: "DATABASE_URL_UNPOOLED", // optional - the name of the environment variable that contains the direct database URL if you are using a direct database URL
      }),
    ],
  },
});

If you have multiple generator statements defined in your schema file, you can pass in the clientGenerator option to specify the prisma-client-js generator, which will prevent other generators from being generated:

If you are using TypedSQL, you’ll need to enable it via the typedSql option:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      prismaExtension({
        schema: "prisma/schema.prisma",
        typedSql: true,
      }),
    ],
  },
});

The prismaExtension will inject the DATABASE_URL environment variable into the build process. Learn more about setting environment variables for deploying in our Environment Variables guide.

These environment variables are only used during the build process and are not embedded in the final container image.

syncEnvVars

The syncEnvVars build extension replaces the deprecated resolveEnvVars export. Check out our syncEnvVars documentation for more information.

import { syncEnvVars } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [syncEnvVars()],
  },
});

syncVercelEnvVars

The syncVercelEnvVars build extension syncs environment variables from your Vercel project to Trigger.dev.

You need to set the VERCEL_ACCESS_TOKEN and VERCEL_PROJECT_ID environment variables, or pass in the token and project ID as arguments to the syncVercelEnvVars build extension. If you’re working with a team project, you’ll also need to set VERCEL_TEAM_ID, which can be found in your team settings. You can find / generate the VERCEL_ACCESS_TOKEN in your Vercel dashboard. Make sure the scope of the token covers the project with the environment variables you want to sync.

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { syncVercelEnvVars } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [syncVercelEnvVars()],
  },
});

audioWaveform

Previously, we installed Audio Waveform in the build image. That’s been moved to a build extension:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { audioWaveform } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/audioWaveform";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [audioWaveform()], // uses verson 1.1.0 of audiowaveform by default
  },
});

puppeteer

WEB SCRAPING: When web scraping, you MUST use a proxy to comply with our terms of service. Direct scraping of third-party websites without the site owner’s permission using Trigger.dev Cloud is prohibited and will result in account suspension. See this example which uses a proxy.

To use Puppeteer in your project, add these build settings to your trigger.config.ts file:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { puppeteer } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/puppeteer";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [puppeteer()],
  },
});

And add the following environment variable in your Trigger.dev dashboard on the Environment Variables page:

PUPPETEER_EXECUTABLE_PATH: "/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable",

Follow this example to get setup with Trigger.dev and Puppeteer in your project.

ffmpeg

You can add the ffmpeg build extension to your build process:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { ffmpeg } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [ffmpeg()],
  },
});

By default, this will install the version of ffmpeg that is available in the Debian package manager. If you need a specific version, you can pass in the version as an argument:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { ffmpeg } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [ffmpeg({ version: "6.0-4" })],
  },
});

This extension will also add the FFMPEG_PATH and FFPROBE_PATH to your environment variables, making it easy to use popular ffmpeg libraries like fluent-ffmpeg.

Follow this example to get setup with Trigger.dev and FFmpeg in your project.

esbuild plugins

You can easily add existing or custom esbuild plugins to your build process using the esbuildPlugin extension:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { esbuildPlugin } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions";
import { sentryEsbuildPlugin } from "@sentry/esbuild-plugin";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      esbuildPlugin(
        sentryEsbuildPlugin({
          org: process.env.SENTRY_ORG,
          project: process.env.SENTRY_PROJECT,
          authToken: process.env.SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN,
        }),
        // optional - only runs during the deploy command, and adds the plugin to the end of the list of plugins
        { placement: "last", target: "deploy" }
      ),
    ],
  },
});

aptGet

You can install system packages into the deployed image using using the aptGet extension:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";
import { aptGet } from "@trigger.dev/build/extensions/core";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [aptGet({ packages: ["ffmpeg"] })],
  },
});

If you want to install a specific version of a package, you can specify the version like this:

import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [aptGet({ packages: ["ffmpeg=6.0-4"] })],
  },
});

Custom extensions

You can create your own extensions to further customize the build process. Extensions are an object with a name and zero or more lifecycle hooks (onBuildStart and onBuildComplete) that allow you to modify the BuildContext object that is passed to the build process through adding layers. For example, this is how the aptGet extension is implemented:

import { BuildExtension } from "@trigger.dev/core/v3/build";

export type AptGetOptions = {
  packages: string[];
};

export function aptGet(options: AptGetOptions): BuildExtension {
  return {
    name: "aptGet",
    onBuildComplete(context) {
      if (context.target === "dev") {
        return;
      }

      context.logger.debug("Adding apt-get layer", {
        pkgs: options.packages,
      });

      context.addLayer({
        id: "apt-get",
        image: {
          pkgs: options.packages,
        },
      });
    },
  };
}

Instead of creating this function and worrying about types, you can define an extension inline in your trigger.config.ts file:

trigger.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from "@trigger.dev/sdk/v3";

export default defineConfig({
  project: "<project ref>",
  // Your other config settings...
  build: {
    extensions: [
      {
        name: "aptGet",
        onBuildComplete(context) {
          if (context.target === "dev") {
            return;
          }

          context.logger.debug("Adding apt-get layer", {
            pkgs: ["ffmpeg"],
          });

          context.addLayer({
            id: "apt-get",
            image: {
              pkgs: ["ffmpeg"],
            },
          });
        },
      },
    ],
  },
});

We’ll be expanding the documentation on how to create custom extensions in the future, but for now you are encouraged to look at the existing extensions in the @trigger.dev/build package for inspiration, which you can see in our repo here

Getting Started

Fundamentals

Development

Deployment

Writing tasks

Frontend usage

Realtime API

API reference

CLI

Open source

Troubleshooting

Help

The trigger.config.ts file

Dirs

Lifecycle functions

Instrumentations

Runtime

Default machine

Log level

Max duration

Build configuration

External

JSX

Conditions

Extensions

additionalFiles

`additionalPackages`

`emitDecoratorMetadata`

Prisma

syncEnvVars

syncVercelEnvVars

audioWaveform

puppeteer

ffmpeg

esbuild plugins

aptGet

Custom extensions

Getting Started

Fundamentals

Development

Deployment

Writing tasks

Frontend usage

Realtime API

API reference

CLI

Open source

Troubleshooting

Help

​Dirs

​Lifecycle functions

​Instrumentations

​Runtime

​Default machine

​Log level

​Max duration

​Build configuration

​External

​JSX

​Conditions

​Extensions

​additionalFiles

​additionalPackages

​emitDecoratorMetadata

​Prisma

​syncEnvVars

​syncVercelEnvVars

​audioWaveform

​puppeteer

​ffmpeg

​esbuild plugins

​aptGet

​Custom extensions

Dirs

Lifecycle functions

Instrumentations

Runtime

Default machine

Log level

Max duration

Build configuration

External

JSX

Conditions

Extensions

additionalFiles

`additionalPackages`

`emitDecoratorMetadata`

Prisma

syncEnvVars

syncVercelEnvVars

audioWaveform

puppeteer

ffmpeg

esbuild plugins

aptGet

Custom extensions