queue-max 0.1.1

Task queue with SQLite sharding, rate limiting, and circuit breaker

Queue Max

Task queue library with SQLite persistence, sharding, rate limiting, and circuit breaker.

No Redis or RabbitMQ required. Zero external dependencies (except typing-extensions).

from queue_max import Queue, Worker

queue = Queue()
queue.enqueue({"task": "send_email", "to": "[e-mail]"})

Worker("worker-1", lambda p: print(p), queue).start()

Installation

pip install queue-max

Optional extras:

pip install queue-max[events]    # Typed events with bubus + Pydantic
pip install queue-max[django]    # Django management commands
pip install queue-max[fastapi]   # FastAPI middleware
pip install queue-max[flask]     # Flask extension

Architecture

                    ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
                    │                   Queue                      │
                    │  ┌────────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  │
                    │  │  Shard Mgr │  │RateLimit │  │ Circuit  │  │
                    │  │  (SQLite)  │  │  Token   │  │  Breaker │  │
                    │  └─────┬──────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  │
                    └────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
         ┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
         ▼                   ▼                   ▼
   ┌──────────┐       ┌──────────┐       ┌──────────┐
   │ shard_0  │       │ shard_1  │       │ shard_N  │
   │ fila.db  │       │ fila.db  │       │ fila.db  │
   │   WAL    │       │   WAL    │       │   WAL    │
   └──────────┘       └──────────┘       └──────────┘
         │                   │                   │
         └───────────┬───────┴───────┬───────────┘
                     ▼               ▼
               ┌──────────┐   ┌──────────┐
               │  Worker  │   │  Worker  │  ...
               │ (thread) │   │ (thread) │
               └──────────┘   └──────────┘

Each shard is an independent SQLite file in WAL mode. Workers scan shard groups in random order to distribute load.

Features

SQLite Persistence — Jobs are stored in SQLite with WAL mode. No external services needed.

Physical Sharding — Multiple .db files (default 6) allow true concurrent write access. Each shard is an independent database with its own lock.

Rate Limiting — Token bucket algorithm shared across all workers. Configurable per minute/second/hour.

Circuit Breaker — Three-state (CLOSED → OPEN → HALF_OPEN → CLOSED). Automatically tracks job failures from Queue.fail_job() and resets on Queue.complete_job().

Retry with Backoff — Exponential backoff (base × 2^(n-1)) with ±20% jitter. Transient errors (5xx, timeout, 429) retry automatically. Client errors (4xx except 429) are permanent.

Dead Letter Queue — Jobs that exhaust all retries are moved to a DLQ table for inspection.

Heartbeat and Orphan Recovery — Workers send heartbeats every 5s. Jobs with stale heartbeats (>30s) are recovered as pending.

Priority Queues — Three levels: low (0), medium (1), high (2). Ordering is per-shard.

Event System — Simple callbacks built-in. Optional typed events with bubus + Pydantic (queue-max[events]).

CLI — Built-in commands for stats, workers, enqueue, retry, purge, and listing.

Quick Start

Basic enqueue + worker

from queue_max import Queue, Worker
import time

queue = Queue(shards=3, rate_limit=100)

def process(payload: dict) -> str:
    print(f"Processing: {payload}")
    return "done"

# Enqueue jobs
for i in range(5):
    queue.enqueue({"task": f"job-{i}"}, priority=i % 3)

# Process with a worker
worker = Worker("example", process, queue, poll_interval=0.1)
worker.start()
time.sleep(3)
worker.stop()

stats = queue.get_stats()
print(f"Stats: {stats}")

With decorator

from queue_max import task

@task(priority=2, max_retries=3)
def send_email(to: str, subject: str):
    return send(to, subject)

# Enqueue for background processing
send_email.delay("[e-mail]", "Hello")

# Schedule for later
from datetime import datetime, timezone, timedelta
future = datetime.now(timezone.utc) + timedelta(minutes=5)
send_email.schedule_at(future, "[e-mail]", "Scheduled!")

# Parallel processing
send_email.map(["[e-mail]", "[e-mail]"], "Welcome!")

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
NUM_SHARDS	6	Number of shard databases
RATE_LIMIT_MAX	160	Max requests per minute
QUEUE_MAX_RETRIES	3	Max retry attempts after first failure
CIRCUIT_FAILURE_THRESHOLD	5	Consecutive failures before circuit opens
CIRCUIT_TIMEOUT	60	Seconds before circuit recovery attempt
DB_BUSY_TIMEOUT	30000	SQLite busy timeout (ms)
DATA_DIR	./data	Directory for shard databases
CACHE_SIZE	10000	SQLite cache size (pages)
MMAP_SIZE	268435456	Memory-mapped I/O size (bytes)
HEARTBEAT_INTERVAL	5000	Worker heartbeat interval (ms)
STUCK_TIMEOUT	30000	Orphan job timeout (ms)
RECOVERY_INTERVAL	10000	Orphan recovery check interval (ms)
CLEANUP_DAYS	7	Age threshold for job cleanup
QUEUE_ALERT_THRESHOLD	1000	Pending jobs before alert event
QUEUE_MAX_LOG_LEVEL	WARNING	Log level

Full list in .env.example.

API Reference

Queue

from queue_max import Queue

queue = Queue(
    shards=None,                          # Number of shards (default: NUM_SHARDS or 6)
    rate_limit=None,                      # Requests per minute (default: RATE_LIMIT_MAX or 160)
    max_retries=None,                     # Max retries after first failure (default: QUEUE_MAX_RETRIES or 3)
    data_dir=None,                        # Directory for shard files (default: DATA_DIR or ./data)
    circuit_breaker_threshold=None,       # Failures before circuit opens (default: 5)
    circuit_breaker_timeout=None,         # Seconds before recovery (default: 60)
    rate_limiter_timeout=5.0,             # Seconds to wait for rate limit token
)

# ── Enqueue ──
queue.enqueue(payload, pagina_id=None, priority=0, max_retries=None)
queue.enqueue_batch([{"payload": {...}, "pagina_id": 1, "priority": 2}, ...])
queue.enqueue_from_file("jobs.jsonl", fmt="jsonl")

# ── Process ──
job = queue.pop_job(worker_id)       # Returns Job or None
queue.complete_job(job_id, shard_id)
queue.fail_job(job_id, shard_id, error, permanent=False)

# ── Management ──
queue.retry_failed_jobs(shard_id=None)
queue.cleanup_old_jobs(days=7)
queue.purge_queue(status=None)       # "pending", "failed", "processing", or None (all)
queue.recover_orphans()
queue.heartbeat(shard_id, worker_id)
queue.wait_until_empty(timeout=None)
queue.get_failed_jobs(limit=100)
queue.get_processing_jobs()
stats = queue.get_stats()

# ── Events ──
queue.on("job_completed", lambda job_id, shard_id: print(f"Done: {job_id}"))
queue.on("alert", lambda type, pending, threshold: print(f"Alert: {pending}"))

# ── Context manager (auto-close) ──
with Queue() as queue:
    queue.enqueue({"task": "example"})

Queue Stats

stats = queue.get_stats()
# {
#     "pending": int,
#     "processing": int,
#     "failed": int,
#     "num_shards": int,
#     "rate_limit": int,
#     "max_retries": int,
#     "circuit_state": "closed" | "open" | "half_open",
#     "circuit_failures": int,
#     "tokens_available": float,
#     "uptime_seconds": float,
#     "is_healthy": bool,
# }

Job

from queue_max import Job, JobStatus, JobPriority

# Job properties
job.id              # int — job ID (unique per shard)
job.payload         # dict — job data
job.status          # JobStatus — PENDING, PROCESSING, COMPLETED, FAILED, CANCELLED
job.priority_int    # int — 0, 1, or 2
job.shard_id        # int — which shard holds this job
job.tentativas      # int — attempt count
job.max_tentativas  # int — max attempts allowed = max_retries + 1
job.last_error      # str or None
job.error_type      # str or None
job.worker_id       # str or None
job.created_at      # ISO timestamp
job.next_retry_at   # ISO timestamp or None (retry scheduled for the future)
job.started_at      # ISO timestamp or None
job.completed_at    # ISO timestamp or None

# Convenience checks
job.is_pending      # bool
job.is_processing   # bool
job.is_completed    # bool
job.is_failed       # bool
job.is_cancelled    # bool
job.is_terminal     # bool — completed, failed, or cancelled
job.can_retry       # bool — tentativas < max_tentativas
job.remaining_retries  # int
job.age_seconds     # float or None
job.processing_time_seconds  # float or None

Worker

from queue_max import Worker, AsyncWorker, WorkerPool

# Basic worker
worker = Worker(
    worker_id="worker-1",
    process_function=my_func,          # Callable[[dict], Any]
    queue=queue,
    poll_interval=1.0,                 # Seconds between polls when queue is empty
    job_timeout=None,                  # Max seconds per job execution
    on_job_start=None,                 # Callback(worker_id, job_id, payload)
    on_job_complete=None,              # Callback(worker_id, job_id, result)
    on_job_error=None,                 # Callback(worker_id, job_id, error, permanent)
)
worker.start()
worker.stop(timeout=10.0)

stats = worker.get_stats()
# {
#     "worker_id": str,
#     "state": "running" | "stopped" | ...,
#     "is_running": bool,
#     "processed": int,
#     "failed": int,
#     "retried": int,
#     "throughput_jobs_per_hour": float,
#     "uptime_seconds": float,
#     "current_job_id": int or None,
# }

# Async worker (for coroutines)
async def async_process(payload):
    await some_api(payload)
    return "ok"

async_worker = AsyncWorker("async-1", async_process, queue)
async_worker.start()

# Worker pool with auto-scaling
pool = WorkerPool(
    workers=[worker1, worker2],
    auto_scale=True,
    min_workers=2,
    max_workers=20,
    scale_up_threshold=100,    # Add worker when pending > 100
    scale_down_threshold=10,   # Remove worker when pending < 10
    scale_check_interval=60,   # Check every 60s
)
pool.start_all()
pool.stop_all()
pool.wait_for_idle(timeout=30)

Rate Limiter

from queue_max import RateLimiter, RateLimitUnit

limiter = RateLimiter(rate_limit=10, unit=RateLimitUnit.PER_SECOND)
limiter.acquire(timeout=5.0)        # Blocks until token available, raises RateLimitError
limiter.try_acquire()               # Non-blocking, returns bool
limiter.get_remaining_tokens()      # float
limiter.get_retry_after()           # float — seconds until next token
limiter.update_rate_limit(20)       # Change limit dynamically
limiter.reset()
limiter.get_stats()

Circuit Breaker

from queue_max import CircuitBreaker

cb = CircuitBreaker(failure_threshold=5, recovery_timeout=60.0)
cb.is_allowed()       # Check if request can pass through
cb.call(func)         # Execute with CB protection (raises CircuitBreakerOpenError)
cb.record_success()   # Reset failure count (called automatically by Queue.complete_job)
cb.record_failure()   # Increment failure count (called automatically by Queue.fail_job)
cb.state              # CircuitState: CLOSED, OPEN, or HALF_OPEN
cb.reset()
cb.get_stats()

Decorators

from queue_max import task, periodic_task, retryable_task

@task(priority=2, max_retries=5, timeout=30)
def process_order(order_id: int):
    """.delay() enqueues, direct call executes synchronously."""
    ...

process_order.delay(42)                       # Background
process_order.schedule_in(300, 42)            # In 5 minutes
process_order.schedule_at(datetime(...), 42)  # At specific time
process_order.map([101, 102, 103], coupon=1)  # Parallel
process_order.get_stats()                     # Task statistics

@periodic_task(interval=3600, priority=1)
def cleanup_old_data():
    """Auto-runs every hour."""
    ...

cleanup_old_data.start_scheduler()  # Starts daemon thread

@retryable_task(max_retries=5, retry_on=[TimeoutError])
def fetch_external_data(url: str):
    """Sync retry wrapper. .delay() still enqueues async."""
    ...

Retry & Failure Flow

Error Classification

When a job fails, is_retryable_error() classifies the error:

Error	Retryable?	Behavior
4xx (except 429)	No	Permanent → Dead Letter Queue
429 Too Many Requests	Yes	Retry with backoff
5xx Server Error	Yes	Retry with backoff
Timeout	Yes	Retry with backoff
ConnectionError	Yes	Retry with backoff

Retry Mechanics

• Backoff formula: base × 2^(attempt-1) ± 20% jitter, capped at 3600s
• max_retries=N means N retries = N+1 total attempts
• Each attempt increments tentativas in the database
• After exhausting retries, the job moves to the Dead Letter Queue

Circuit Breaker Integration

The circuit breaker is wired into Queue.complete_job() and Queue.fail_job():

1. fail_job() — calls circuit_breaker.record_failure() (increments counter)
2. complete_job() — calls circuit_breaker.record_success() (resets counter)
3. After N consecutive failures (default 5), circuit opens → pop_job() returns None
4. After recovery timeout, next pop_job() transitions to HALF_OPEN
5. If the next job succeeds → CLOSED. If it fails → OPEN again.

queue = Queue(max_retries=2, circuit_breaker_threshold=3)

# Retry flow (max_retries=2 → 3 total attempts):
#   Attempt 1 → fail → retry (backoff ~120s)
#   Attempt 2 → fail → retry (backoff ~240s)
#   Attempt 3 → fail → Dead Letter Queue

# Circuit breaker flow (threshold=3):
#   After 3 permanent failures → CIRCUIT OPENS
#   pop_job() returns None for all workers
#   After timeout → HALF_OPEN → one job passes
#   If success → CLOSED. If fail → OPEN again.

Dead Letter Queue

Jobs that exhaust all retries or fail with permanent=True are moved to the dead_letter_queue table:

# Inspect DLQ for a specific shard
dlq = queue.shard_manager.get_dead_letter_queue(shard_id=0)

for entry in dlq:
    print(f"Job {entry['original_job_id']}: {entry['error']}")

Orphan Recovery

A job stuck in processing status (worker died without completing or failing) is recovered:

orphans = queue.recover_orphans()
print(f"Recovered {orphans} stuck jobs")

The recovery checks for jobs where heartbeat is older than STUCK_TIMEOUT (default 30s). Recovered jobs are reset to pending status with next_retry_at set to now.

Event System

Built-in Callbacks (no extra dependencies)

queue.on("job_enqueued",  lambda job_id, shard_id: print(f"Enqueued {job_id}"))
queue.on("job_completed", lambda job_id, shard_id: update_metrics())
queue.on("job_failed",    lambda job_id, shard_id, error: alert(error))
queue.on("job_retried",   lambda job_id, shard_id, error: log_retry(error))
queue.on("alert",         lambda type, pending, threshold: notify(pending))

# Suppress events during batch
with queue.batch():
    for item in items:
        queue.enqueue(item)

Available events:

Event	Payload	Trigger
job_enqueued	job_id, shard_id	enqueue()
job_completed	job_id, shard_id	complete_job()
job_failed	job_id, shard_id, error	fail_job(permanent=True)
job_retried	job_id, shard_id, error	fail_job() with retry
alert	type, pending, threshold	Pending > QUEUE_ALERT_THRESHOLD

Typed Events with bubus (optional)

Requires: pip install queue-max[events]

Typed Pydantic events with async dispatch, event tree debugging, expect() for waiting, and pattern matching:

from queue_max.contrib.events import QueueEventBus, JobCompleted, JobFailed

queue = Queue(shards=3)
events = QueueEventBus(queue)

# Typed handler
@events.on(JobCompleted)
def handle(event: JobCompleted) -> None:
    print(f"Job {event.job_id} done in shard {event.shard_id}")

# Wildcard handler
@events.on("job_*")
def log_all(event):
    print(f"{type(event).__name__}: {event.model_dump()}")

# Wait for a specific event (blocks until received)
failed = events.expect(JobFailed, timeout=30)
print(f"Job {failed.job_id} failed: {failed.error}")

# Event tree for debugging causality
print(events.log_tree())

# Metrics
metrics = events.get_metrics()

# Context manager
with QueueEventBus(queue) as events:
    @events.on(JobCompleted)
    def handler(event): ...

# Available typed events:
#   JobEnqueued  — job_id, shard_id
#   JobCompleted — job_id, shard_id
#   JobFailed    — job_id, shard_id, error
#   JobRetried   — job_id, shard_id, error
#   Alert        — alert_type, pending, threshold

CLI

# Stats
queue-max stats
queue-max stats --json --shard 0

# Start workers
queue-max worker --function mymodule:myfunction --workers 4

# Enqueue
queue-max enqueue --payload '{"task":"test"}' --priority 2 --json

# List & manage
queue-max list --status failed --limit 20
queue-max list --status processing
queue-max retry
queue-max retry --shard 0 --job-id 42
queue-max purge --days 7

Framework Integrations

Django

# settings.py
INSTALLED_APPS = ["queue_max.contrib.django", ...]
QUEUE_MAX = {"SHARDS": 4, "RATE_LIMIT": 160}

# tasks.py
from queue_max.contrib.django import task

@task
def my_task(user_id):
    ...

Management commands: python manage.py queue_worker, queue_stats, queue_purge.

FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI
from queue_max.contrib.fastapi import QueueMiddleware

app = FastAPI()
app.add_middleware(QueueMiddleware, max_workers=4)

Flask

from flask import Flask
from queue_max.contrib.flask import QueueExtension

app = Flask(__name__)
queue = QueueExtension(app)

@queue.task
def my_task():
    ...

Database Schema

Each shard is a separate .db file (data/shard_0.db, data/shard_1.db, ...) with WAL mode.

fila table (the queue)

Column	Type	Description
id	INTEGER PK	Auto-increment job ID
pagina_id	INTEGER NULL	Optional ID for consistent shard routing
payload	TEXT	JSON-serialized job data
status	TEXT	pending, processing, completed, failed, cancelled, scheduled
priority	INTEGER	0=low, 1=medium, 2=high
tentativas	INTEGER	Attempt counter
max_tentativas	INTEGER	Max attempts allowed = max_retries + 1
last_error	TEXT NULL	Error message
error_type	TEXT NULL	Exception class name
error_stack	TEXT NULL	Full traceback
worker_id	TEXT NULL	Currently processing worker
heartbeat	TEXT NULL	ISO timestamp of last activity
created_at	TEXT	Creation timestamp
started_at	TEXT NULL	Processing start timestamp
completed_at	TEXT NULL	Completion/failure timestamp
next_retry_at	TEXT NULL	Scheduled retry timestamp

dead_letter_queue table

Column	Type	Description
id	INTEGER PK	Row ID
original_job_id	INTEGER	Reference to original fila.id
payload	TEXT	Original job payload
error	TEXT	Error message
error_type	TEXT	Exception type
failed_at	TEXT	Failure timestamp
shard_id	INTEGER	Originating shard

shard_metadata table

Per-shard statistics: version, created_at, last_vacuum, total_jobs_processed, total_jobs_failed.

Performance

Scenario	Config	Throughput
Burst	20 workers, 10 shards	~3.300 jobs/sec
Contention	10 workers, 1 shard	~1.660 jobs/sec
30% failure	8 workers, max_retries=2	Stable
50k jobs	12 workers, 12 shards	219 jobs/sec (enqueue bottleneck)

• Max queue size: 1M+ jobs per shard
• Detailed stress test results

Running Tests

pip install -e ".[all]"
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -v

License

MIT