Some tasks don't belong in request handlers—sending emails, processing images, generating reports. Background jobs handle these asynchronously, improving response times and reliability.
When to Use Background Jobs#
Good candidates:
- Sending emails/notifications
- Processing uploads (images, videos)
- Generating reports
- Syncing with external services
- Batch data processing
- Scheduled tasks (cron)
- Webhooks delivery
BullMQ Setup#
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Worker Implementation#
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Job Patterns#
Fan-Out#
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Job Chaining#
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Job Dependencies (Flow)#
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Progress Tracking#
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Error Handling#
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Monitoring Dashboard#
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Best Practices#
DO:
✓ Make jobs idempotent
✓ Store minimal data in job payload
✓ Set appropriate timeouts
✓ Monitor queue depths
✓ Handle job failures gracefully
✓ Use separate queues for priorities
DON'T:
✗ Store large payloads in jobs
✗ Rely on job order
✗ Ignore failed jobs
✗ Run workers without monitoring
✗ Use infinite retries
Conclusion#
Background jobs improve user experience and system reliability. Use queues for anything that can be deferred, implement proper error handling, and monitor your queues.
The key is making jobs idempotent—they should be safe to run multiple times.