elastiq

elastiq is an Elasticsearch-powered job queue.

Pronounced Elasti-queue. This is not supported by Elastic.

Project Status

While it's believed to be pretty stable, this library isn't really being used anywhere. Issues and PRs are welcome, but it isn't actively being developed. As such, it doesn't get a lot of stress testing, and I don't recommend you rely too heavily on it, hence its experimental status.

Installation

Version	Elasticsearch Version
2.x +	5.x +

npm install elastiq

If you are working with an older version of Elasticsearch, consider using esqueue.

Usage

Simply include the module in your application.

var elastiq = require('elastiq');

Creating a queue

The first step is to create a new Queue instance. This is your point of entry, is the way to create and coordinate jobs and workers.

var index = 'my-index';
var options = {};
 
var queue = new Elastiq(index, options);

The queue instance is an event emitter, so you can listen for error events as you would any other event emitter.

index is the Elasticsearch root index you plan to use. The queue will create time-based indices, using date strings, based on the interval you specify (see options below).

Option	Default	Description
interval	week	Valid choices are year, month, week, day, hour, and even minute.
dateSeparator	-	Separator for the formatted date, YYYY-MM-DD for example, in the index pattern.
timeout	10000	The default job timeout, in ms. If workers take longer than this, the job is re-queued for another worker to complete it.
doctype	elastiq	The doctype to use in Elasticsearch
indexSettings		Specify which settings to pass on index creation. See the Elasticsearch index creation docs for more info.
client		Options to use when creating a new client instance - see the elasticsearch-js docs. If you rather use your own client instance, just pass it in here instead.

Creating a job

The end result of creating a new job is a new document in Elasticsearch, which workers will search for and attempt to perform an action based on.

var type = 'example';
var payload = {};
var options = {};
 
var job = queue.addJob(type, payload, options);

The job instance is an event emitter, so you can listen for error events as you would any other event emitter.

type can be any string, and is simply a way to categorize multiple different jobs that operate on the same queue.

payload here can be anything that can be converted into a JSON string. This is meant for information that a worker will need to perform the task and complete the job.

Option	Default	Description
timeout	10000	Timeout for the job, if different than the timeout configured on the queue.
max_attempts	3	Number of times to re-trying assigning the job to a worker before giving up and failing.
priority	0	Used to move jobs up the queue. Uses nice values from -20 to 20.
created_by	null	Used to filter job documents by a creator identifier; meant to be consumed by external applications.
headers		Any headers to add to the index request. Handy for custom authentication or use with a proxy.
client		Alternative elasticsearch client instance, if you need to use one other than what the queue was created with.

Creating a worker

Workers are functions that take a job's payload, perform an action, and optionally provide output. If output is returned, it will be written to the job document. Workers do not have access to the underlying job instance, just the job information that is indexed to Elasticsearch.

var type = 'example';
var workerFn = function (payload) {
  // Do some work, using the payload if required
  return 'output';
};
var options = {};
 
var worker = queue.registerWorker(type, workerFn, options);

If you need to do async work, simply return a Promise. To handle errors, either throw or reject the returned Promise.

var type = 'example';
var workerFn = function (payload) {
  // Do some work, using the payload if required
  return new Promise(function(resolve, reject) {
    doAsyncWork(function (err, result) {
      if (err) return reject(err);
      resolve(results);
    })
  })
};
var options = {};
 
var worker = queue.registerWorker(type, workerFn, options);

The worker instance is an event emitter, so you can listen for error events as you would any other event emitter.

type can be any string, and is used to look for jobs with the same type value.

payload is the information attached to the job.

Option	Default	Description
interval	1500	Time, in ms to poll for new jobs in the queue.
size	10	Number of records to return when polling for new jobs. Higher values may result in less Elasticsearch requests, but may also take longer to execute. A bit of tuning based on the number of workers you have my be required here.
client		Alternative elasticsearch client instance, if you need to use one other than what the queue was created with.
doctype	queue.doctype	The doctype to use when polling for new jobs. You probably don't want to change this.

The worker's output can either be the raw output from the job, or on object that specifies the output's content type.

var workerFn1 = function (payload) {
  // Do some work, using the payload if required
  var output = new Date().toString();
  return output;
};
 
var workerFn2 = function (payload) {
  // Do some work, using the payload if required
  var output = {
    content_type: 'text/plain',
    content: new Date().toString();
  };
  return output;
};
 
var asyncWorker = function (payload) {
  // Do some work, using the payload if required
  return Promise.resolve({
    content_type: 'text/plain',
    content: new Date().toString();
  })
};
 

All of the above are valid. workerFn2 and asyncWorker are likely to be more useful when retrieving the output, as the application doesn't need to know or make assumptions about the type of content the worker returned. Note that returning a Promise is all that's required for an async result in the worker functions.

Queue events

elastiq components, namely the Queue, Job, and Worker instances, are also event emitters. Each instance will emit events to help your application know when certain things happen in the queue, like when a job is created, or a worker is done running, or when it times out.

It's important to note that all events emitted from the Job and Worker instances are also emitted on the Queue instance. This means that your application should be able to react to changes by only keeping track of that instance.

Available events can be found in lib/constants/events.js, and you're encouraged to import and use those constant values in your application. Here's an example:

var Queue = require('elastiq');
var queueEvents = require('elastiq/lib/constants/events');
 
var jobQueue = new Queue('my-index');
 
jobQueue.on(queueEvents.EVENT_JOB_CREATE_ERROR, (err) => {
  // handle error
  console.log('ONOZ!!! Job creation failed :(', err.error.message);
});

The argument passed to listeners typically contains several pieces of information about what happened. For example, Worker events will contain information about the job, the worker, and if it's an error event, the error.

More than any other events, you'll probably want to know if a worker completed or failed. When a worker starts, it will always either emit EVENT_WORKER_COMPLETE or EVENT_WORKER_JOB_FAIL. Faliures may also emit other events, such as EVENT_WORKER_JOB_TIMEOUT or EVENT_WORKER_JOB_EXECUTION_ERROR, but you can rely on EVENT_WORKER_JOB_FAIL for all failure cases.

Scaling the queue

Scaling the queue, both in terms of creating jobs and spinning up workers, is as simple as creating a new queue on another machine and pointing it at the same index.