NextJS Background Task

README.md

NextJS Background Task Example

An example of how to add a background task (e.g. a queue consumer) to an existing NextJS project.

Setup

• Add your background task file
• Add a new worker-tsconfig.json, specifically specifying "module": "commonjs" and targeting only the worker source files.
• Add convenience functions for building & running to package.json

Then to build once:

npm run workers-build

Or to watch source files:

npm run workers-watch

Then to run the worker:

npm run workers-start

package.json

{
  "name": "nextjs-with-worker",
  "source": "src/index.html",
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "next dev",
    "build": "next build",
    "start": "next start",
    "lint": "next lint",
    "workers-build": "tsc --project worker-tsconfig.json",
    "workers-watch": "tsc --watch --project worker-tsconfig.json",
    "workers-start": "NODE_PATH=.workers/:node_modules/ node ./.workers/src/workers/task.js"
  }
}

task.ts

// src/workers/task.ts
import { prisma } from "src/services/PrismaService";

async function main() {
  const count = await prisma.openTasks.count();
  console.log(`Task count: ${count}`);
  // Insert loop to consume tasks here...
}

main();

worker-tsconfig.json

{
    "compilerOptions": {
      "target": "es2022",
      "lib": [
        "esnext"
      ],
      "allowJs": false,
      "skipLibCheck": true,
      "strict": true,
      "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,
      "incremental": true,
      "esModuleInterop": true,
      "module": "commonjs",
      "moduleResolution": "node",
      "resolveJsonModule": true,
      "isolatedModules": true,
      "experimentalDecorators": true,
      "outDir": "./.workers/src/",
      "baseUrl": "./"
    },
    "include": [
      "src/workers/**/*.ts"
    ],
    "exclude": [
      "node_modules"
    ]
  }
  

@koolamusic

My understanding is that I can use a simple Dockerfile to run the Next app with the worker task running in the background.

I didn't explain it well, but I'm using Google Cloud Run for serving Next.js web traffic and Google Compute Engine to run a worker. I manually SSH to the worker to run it similar to how I run it locally here.

this makes sense. thanks

Thank you sir, this helped me out a lot !