Scheduled tasks (cron)
A task that is triggered on a recurring schedule using cron syntax.
Defining a scheduled task
This task will run when any of the attached schedules trigger. They have a predefined payload with some useful properties:
You can see from the comments that the payload has several useful properties:
timestamp
- the time the task was scheduled to run, as a UTC date.lastTimestamp
- the time the task was last run, as a UTC date.timezone
- the timezone the schedule was registered with, defaults to “UTC”. In IANA format, e.g. “America/New_York”.scheduleId
- the id of the schedule that triggered the taskexternalId
- the external id you (optionally) provided when creating the scheduleupcoming
- the next 5 times the task is scheduled to run
This task will NOT get triggered on a schedule until you attach a schedule to it. Read on for how to do that.
Like all tasks they don’t have timeouts, they should be placed inside a /trigger folder, and you can configure them.
How to attach a schedule
Now that we’ve defined a scheduled task, we need to define when it will actually run. To do this we need to attach one or more schedules.
There are two ways of doing this:
- Declarative: defined on your
schedules.task
. They sync when you run the dev command or deploy. - Imperative: created from the dashboard or by using the imperative SDK functions like
schedules.create()
.
A scheduled task can have multiple schedules attached to it, including a declarative schedule and/or many imperative schedules.
Declarative schedules
These sync when you run the dev or deploy commands.
To create them you add the cron
property to your schedules.task()
. This property is optional and is only used if you want to add a declarative schedule to your task:
If you use a string it will be in UTC. Alternatively, you can specify a timezone like this:
When you run the dev or deploy commands, declarative schedules will be synced. If you add, delete or edit the cron
property it will be updated when you run these commands. You can view your schedules on the Schedules page in the dashboard.
Imperative schedules
Alternatively you can explicitly attach schedules to a schedules.task
. You can do this in the Schedules page in the dashboard by just pressing the “New schedule” button, or you can use the SDK to create schedules.
The advantage of imperative schedules is that they can be created dynamically, for example, you could create a schedule for each user in your database. They can also be activated, disabled, edited, and deleted without deploying new code by using the SDK or dashboard.
To use imperative schedules you need to do two things:
- Define a task in your code using
schedules.task()
. - Attach 1+ schedules to the task either using the dashboard or the SDK.
Supported cron syntax
“L” means the last. In the “day of week” field, 1L means the last Monday of the month. In the “day of month” field, L means the last day of the month.
We do not support seconds in the cron syntax.
When schedules won’t trigger
There are two situations when a scheduled task won’t trigger:
- For Dev environments scheduled tasks will only trigger if you’re running the dev CLI.
- For Staging/Production environments scheduled tasks will only trigger if the task is in the current deployment (latest version). We won’t trigger tasks from previous deployments.
Attaching schedules in the dashboard
You need to attach a schedule to a task before it will run on a schedule. You can attach static schedules in the dashboard:
Go to the Schedules page
In the sidebar select the “Schedules” page, then press the “New schedule” button. Or you can follow the onboarding and press the create in dashboard button.
Create your schedule
Fill in the form and press “Create schedule” when you’re done.
These are the options when creating a schedule:
Name | Description |
---|---|
Task | The id of the task you want to attach to. |
Cron pattern | The schedule in cron format. |
Timezone | The timezone the schedule will run in. Defaults to “UTC” |
External id | An optional external id, usually you’d use a userId. |
Deduplication key | An optional deduplication key. If you pass the same value, it will update rather than create. |
Environments | The environments this schedule will run in. |
Attaching schedules with the SDK
You call schedules.create()
to create a schedule from your code. Here’s the simplest possible example:
task
id must be a task that you defined using schedules.task()
.You can create many schedules with the same task
, cron
, and externalId
but only one with the same deduplicationKey
.
This means you can have thousands of schedules attached to a single task, but only one schedule per deduplicationKey
. Here’s an example with all the options:
See the SDK reference for full details.
Dynamic schedules (or multi-tenant schedules)
By using the externalId
you can have schedules for your users. This is useful for things like reminders, where you want to have a schedule for each user.
A reminder task:
Then in your backend code, you can create a schedule for each user:
You can also retrieve, list, delete, deactivate and re-activate schedules using the SDK. More on that later.
Testing schedules
You can test a scheduled task in the dashboard. Note that the scheduleId
will always come through as sched_1234
to the run.
Go to the Test page
In the sidebar select the “Test” page, then select a scheduled task from the list (they have a clock icon on them)
Create your schedule
Fill in the form [1]. You can select from a recent run [2] to pre-populate the fields. Press “Run test” when you’re ready
Managing schedules with the SDK
Retrieving an existing schedule
See the SDK reference for full details.
Listing schedules
See the SDK reference for full details.
Updating a schedule
See the SDK reference for full details.
Deactivating a schedule
See the SDK reference for full details.
Activating a schedule
See the SDK reference for full details.
Deleting a schedule
See the SDK reference for full details.
Getting possible timezones
You might want to show a dropdown menu in your UI so your users can select their timezone. You can get a list of all possible timezones using the SDK:
See the SDK reference for full details.
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