# pg_task
[](https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/)
[](https://crates.io/crates/pg_task)
[](https://docs.rs/pg_task)
FSM-based Resumable Postgres tasks
- **FSM-based** - each task is a granular state machine
- **Resumable** - on error, after you fix the step logic or the external
world, the task is able to pick up where it stopped
- **Postgres** - a single table is enough to handle task scheduling, state
transitions, and error processing
## Table of Contents
- [Tutorial](#tutorial)
- [Defining Tasks](#defining-tasks)
- [Investigating Errors](#investigating-errors)
- [Fixing the World](#fixing-the-world)
- [Scheduling Tasks](#scheduling-tasks)
- [Running Workers](#running-workers)
- [Stopping Workers](#stopping-workers)
- [Delaying Steps](#delaying-steps)
- [Retrying Steps](#retrying-steps)
## Tutorial
_The full runnable code is in [examples/tutorial.rs][tutorial-example]._
### Defining Tasks
We create a greeter task consisting of two steps:
```rust,ignore
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct ReadName {
filename: String,
}
#[async_trait]
impl Step<Greeter> for ReadName {
const RETRY_LIMIT: i32 = 5;
async fn step(self, _db: &PgPool) -> StepResult<Greeter> {
let name = std::fs::read_to_string(&self.filename)?;
NextStep::now(SayHello { name })
}
}
```
The first step tries to read a name from a file:
- `filename` - the only state we need in this step
- `impl Step<Greeter> for ReadName` - our step is a part of a `Greeter` task
- `RETRY_LIMIT` - the step is fallible, let's retry it a few times
- `NextStep::now(SayHello { name })` - move our task to the `SayHello` step
right now
```rust,ignore
#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, Serialize)]
pub struct SayHello {
name: String,
}
#[async_trait]
impl Step<Greeter> for SayHello {
async fn step(self, _db: &PgPool) -> StepResult<Greeter> {
println!("Hello, {}", self.name);
NextStep::none()
}
}
```
The second step prints the greeting and finishes the task returning
`NextStep::none()`.
That's essentially all, except for some boilerplate you can find in the
[full code][tutorial-example]. Let's run it:
```bash
cargo run --example hello
```
### Investigating Errors
You'll see log messages about the 6 (first try + `RETRY_LIMIT`) attempts and
the final error message. Let's look into the DB to find out what happened:
```bash
~$ psql pg_task -c 'table pg_task'
-[ RECORD 1 ]------------------------------------------------
wakeup_at | 2024-06-30 09:32:27.703599+06
tried | 6
is_running | f
error | No such file or directory (os error 2)
created_at | 2024-06-30 09:32:22.628563+06
updated_at | 2024-06-30 09:32:27.703599+06
```
- a non-null `error` field indicates that the task has errored and contains
the error message
- the `step` field provides you with the information about a particular step
and its state when the error occurred
### Fixing the World
In this case, the error is due to the external world state. Let's fix it by
creating the file:
```bash
echo 'Fixed World' > name.txt
```
To rerun the task, we just need to clear its `error`:
```bash
psql pg_task -c 'update pg_task set error = null'
```
You'll see the log messages about rerunning the task and the greeting
message of the final step. That's all 🎉.
## Scheduling Tasks
Essentially scheduling a task is done by inserting a corresponding row into
the `pg_task` table. You can do in by hands from `psql` or code in any
language.
There's also a few helpers to take care of the first step serialization and
time scheduling:
- [`enqueue`] - to run the task immediately
- [`delay`] - to run it with a delay
- [`schedule`] - to schedule it to a particular time
## Running Workers
After [defining](#defining-tasks) the steps of each task, we need to
wrap them into enums representing whole tasks via [`task!`]:
```rust,ignore
pg_task::task!(Task1 { StepA, StepB });
pg_task::task!(Task2 { StepC });
```
One more enum is needed to combine all the possible tasks:
```rust,ignore
pg_task::scheduler!(Tasks { Task1, Task2 });
```
Now we can run the worker:
```rust,ignore
pg_task::Worker::<Tasks>::new(db).run().await?;
```
All the communication is synchronized by the DB, so it doesn't matter how or
how many workers you run. It could be a separate process as well as
in-process [`tokio::spawn`].
## Stopping Workers
You can gracefully stop task runners by sending a notification using the
DB:
```sql
SELECT pg_notify('pg_task_changed', 'stop_worker');
```
The workers would wait until the current step of all the tasks is finished
and then exit. You can wait for this by checking for the existence of
running tasks:
```sql
SELECT EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM pg_task WHERE is_running = true);
```
## Delaying Steps
Sometimes you need to delay the next step. Using [`tokio::time::sleep`]
before returning the next step creates a couple of issues:
- if the process is crashed while sleeping it wont be considered done and
will rerun on restart
- you'd have to wait for the sleeping task to finish on [gracefulshutdown](#stopping-workers)
Use [`NextStep::delay`] instead - it schedules the next step with the delay
and finishes the current one right away.
You can find a runnable example in the [examples/delay.rs][delay-example]
## Retrying Steps
Use [`Step::RETRY_LIMIT`] and [`Step::RETRY_DELAY`] when you need to retry a
task on errors:
```rust,ignore
impl Step<MyTask> for ApiRequest {
const RETRY_LIMIT: i32 = 5;
const RETRY_DELAY: Duration = Duration::from_secs(5);
async fn step(self, _db: &PgPool) -> StepResult<MyTask> {
let result = api_request().await?;
NextStep::now(ProcessResult { result })
}
}
```
## Contributing
- please run [.pre-commit.sh] before sending a PR, it will check everything
## License
This project is licensed under the [MIT license](LICENSE).
[.pre-commit.sh]: https://github.com/imbolc/pg_task/blob/main/.pre-commit.sh
[delay-example]: https://github.com/imbolc/pg_task/blob/main/examples/delay.rs
[tutorial-example]: https://github.com/imbolc/pg_task/blob/main/examples/tutorial.rs