Tasks

A task is a type of function that can be invoked directly from other functions or executed on a specified interval. This allows for cron job like execution of your custom functions and is great for re-occurring tasks.

8base.yml

A task can either be specified to run on a schedule or not. If not, it is then only expected to run whenever called by another custom function. The schedule parameter accepts by the minute, hourly, or daily intervals.

functions:
  #
  # Declare tasks like so.
  sendEmail:
    handler:
      code: src/sendEmail.ts
    type: task
  #
  # Declare tasks (scheduled tasks) like so.
  sendWeeklyReport:
    handler:
      code: src/sendWeeklyReport.ts
    type: task
    schedule: "rate(7 days)"

Non-scheduled function calls

Functions like resolvers, triggers and webhooks usually run in response to user actions. Normally, you'd want to return a response to the user as soon as possible while offloading any longer-running processes to background tasks. In order to do so you can use the invokeFunction(taskName, args, options) method found on the context argument to invoke a background task.

// Context (ctx) argument maintains the invokeFunction method for
// invoking tasks from other functions.
module.exports = async (event, ctx) => {
  const args = { data: { param: "value" } };

  await ctx.invokeFunction("myTask", args, {
    waitForResponse: false
  });
};

// The "myTask" handler may looks like that
module.exports = async (event, ctx) => {
  const { param } = event.data
  // ...
}

The options.waitForResponse (default: false) property tells the platform to resolve the promise immediately without waiting for the task to complete. If instead you'd like to wait for the task result you can set waitForResponse to true.

Note: The value of args is passed as event argument to the invoked task.

Scheduled tasks

You can configure tasks to run on schedule using the schedule option in the 8base.yml declaration. The schedule parameter accepts two types of expressions: Rate and Cron - both of which specify a scheduled invocation on a re-occuring schedule.

Rate expressions

rate(Value Unit)

Expression	Instruction
rate(5 minutes)	Invoke task every 5 minutes
rate(1 hour)	Invoke task every hour
rate(7 days)	Invoke task every seven days

Singular vs. Plural

For a singular value (1) the unit must be written as singular, otherwise it needs to be plural - rate(1 day vs. 5 days).

Cron expressions

cron(Minutes Hours Day-of-month Month Day-of-week Year)

Expression	Instruction
cron(0 10 * ? )	Invoke task at 10:00am (UTC) everyday
cron(15 12 * ? )	Invoke task at 12:15pm (UTC) everyday
cron(0 18 ? MON-FRI )	Invoke task at 06:00pm (UTC) every Mon-Fri
cron(0/10 ? MON-FRI *)	Invoke task every 10 min Mon-Fri
cron(0/5 8-17 ? MON-FRI )	Invoke task every 5 minutes Mon-Fri between 8:00am and 5:55pm (UTC)
cron(0 9 ? 2#1 )	Invoke task at 9 a.m. (UTC) the first Monday of each month

Cron expressions that lead to rates faster than one invocation/minute are not supported. Additionally, one of the day-of-month or day-of-week values must be a question mark (?).

Cron Docs

Check example expressions and read a detailed description of cron syntax here.

Task Arguments

To learn about the arguments that are passed to tasks, review the custom function arguments docs.