Minion(3)

📦

version 11.0 · 10 versions

✨ NAME ✨

Minion — Job queue. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

use Minion;

# Connect to backend
my $minion = Minion->new(Pg => 'postgresql://postgres@/test');

# Add tasks
$minion->add_task(something_slow => sub ($job, @args) {
  sleep 5;
  say 'This is a background worker process.';
});

# Enqueue jobs
$minion->enqueue(something_slow => ['foo', 'bar']);
$minion->enqueue(something_slow => [1, 2, 3] => {priority => 5});

# Perform jobs for testing
$minion->enqueue(something_slow => ['foo', 'bar']);
$minion->perform_jobs;

# Start a worker to perform up to 12 jobs concurrently
my $worker = $minion->worker;
$worker->status->{jobs} = 12;
$worker->run;

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so Minion is a high performance job queue for the Perl programming language, and it's giving everything: multiple named queues, priorities, high priority fast lane, delayed jobs, job dependencies, job progress, job results, retries with backoff, rate limiting, unique jobs, expiring jobs, statistics, distributed workers, parallel processing, autoscaling, remote control, Mojolicious https://mojolicious.org admin ui, resource leak protection and multiple backends (such as PostgreSQL https://www.postgresql.org). No cap.

Job queues let you process time and/or computationally intensive tasks in background processes, outside of the request/response lifecycle of web applications. Among those tasks you'll commonly find image resizing, spam filtering, HTTP downloads, building tarballs, warming caches and basically everything else you can imagine that's not super fast. Like, if it's slow, put it in the background, bestie.

Take a look at our excellent documentation in Minion::Guide! It's iconic.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

This distribution also contains a great example application you can use for inspiration. The link checker https://github.com/mojolicious/minion/tree/main/examples/linkcheck will show you how to integrate background jobs into well-structured Mojolicious applications. It's giving tutorial energy, fr fr.

🎀 EVENTS 🎀

Minion inherits all events from Mojo::EventEmitter and can emit the following new ones. Slay.

enqueue

$minion->on(enqueue => sub ($minion, $id) {
  ...
});

Emitted after a job has been enqueued, in the process that enqueued it. So like, right after you drop it in the queue.

$minion->on(enqueue => sub ($minion, $id) {
  say "Job $id has been enqueued.";
});

worker

$minion->on(worker => sub ($minion, $worker) {
  ...
});

Emitted in the worker process after it has been created. The worker is born and immediately says hi.

$minion->on(worker => sub ($minion, $worker) {
  say "Worker $$ started.";
});

✨ ATTRIBUTES ✨

Minion implements the following attributes. Let's go through them one by one, bestie.

app

my $app = $minion->app;
$minion = $minion->app(MyApp->new);

Application for job queue, defaults to a Mojo::HelloWorld object. Note that this attribute is weakened. So like, it doesn't hold a strong reference, iykyk.

backend

my $backend = $minion->backend;
$minion     = $minion->backend(Minion::Backend::Pg->new);

Backend, usually a Minion::Backend::Pg object. It's the storage baddie behind the scenes.

backoff

my $cb  = $minion->backoff;
$minion = $minion->backoff(sub {...});

A callback used to calculate the delay for automatically retried jobs, defaults to (retries ** 4) + 15 (15, 16, 31, 96, 271, 640...), which means that roughly 25 attempts can be made in 21 days. Math girlie behavior, but it works.

$minion->backoff(sub ($retries) {
  return ($retries ** 4) + 15 + int(rand 30);
});

missing_after

my $after = $minion->missing_after;
$minion   = $minion->missing_after(172800);

Amount of time in seconds after which workers without a heartbeat will be considered missing and removed from the registry by repair, defaults to 1800 (30 minutes). If your worker ghosted, this is how long until it's officially gone.

remove_after

my $after = $minion->remove_after;
$minion   = $minion->remove_after(86400);

Amount of time in seconds after which jobs that have reached the state finished and have no unresolved dependencies will be removed automatically by repair, defaults to 172800 (2 days). It is not recommended to set this value below 2 days. Don't be chaotic, keep it at least 2 days.

stuck_after

my $after = $minion->stuck_after;
$minion   = $minion->stuck_after(86400);

Amount of time in seconds after which jobs that have not been processed will be considered stuck by repair and transition to the failed state, defaults to 172800 (2 days). Like, if a job is just sitting there, it gets yeeted to failed.

tasks

my $tasks = $minion->tasks;
$minion   = $minion->tasks({foo => sub {...}});

Registered tasks. Your little task collection.

💅 METHODS 💅

Minion inherits all methods from Mojo::EventEmitter and implements the following new ones. Let's get into the methods, bestie.

add_task

$minion = $minion->add_task(foo => sub {...});
$minion = $minion->add_task(foo => 'MyApp::Task::Foo');

Register a task, which can be a closure or a custom Minion::Job subclass. Note that support for custom task classes is EXPERIMENTAL and might change without warning! So like, use at your own risk, bestie.

# Job with result
$minion->add_task(add => sub ($job, $first, $second) {
  $job->finish($first + $second);
});
my $id = $minion->enqueue(add => [1, 1]);
my $result = $minion->job($id)->info->{result};

broadcast

my $bool = $minion->broadcast('some_command');
my $bool = $minion->broadcast('some_command', [@args]);
my $bool = $minion->broadcast('some_command', [@args], [$id1, $id2, $id3]);

Broadcast remote control command to one or more workers. It's giving group chat energy for your workers.

# Broadcast "stop" command to all workers to kill job 10025
$minion->broadcast('stop', [10025]);

# Broadcast "kill" command to all workers to interrupt job 10026
$minion->broadcast('kill', ['INT', 10026]);

# Broadcast "jobs" command to pause worker 23
$minion->broadcast('jobs', [0], [23]);

# Broadcast "spare" command to disable the feature on all workers
$minion->broadcast('spare', [0]);

class_for_task

my $class = $minion->class_for_task('foo');

Return job class for task. Note that this method is EXPERIMENTAL and might change without warning! So don't get too attached.

enqueue

my $id = $minion->enqueue('foo');
my $id = $minion->enqueue(foo => [@args]);
my $id = $minion->enqueue(foo => [@args] => {priority => 1});

Enqueue a new job with inactive state. Arguments get serialized by the backend (often with Mojo::JSON), so you shouldn't send objects and be careful with binary data, nested data structures with hash and array references are fine though. So like, no random blessed refs, but hashes and arrays are slay.

These options are currently available:

attempts — attempts => 25

Number of times performing this job will be attempted, with a delay based on backoff after the first attempt, defaults to 1. So like, how many chances it gets.

delay — delay => 10

Delay job for this many seconds (from now), defaults to 0. It's not lazy, it's just scheduling.

expire — expire => 300

Job is valid for this many seconds (from now) before it expires. After that, it's expired, periodt.

lax — lax => 1

Existing jobs this job depends on may also have transitioned to the failed state to allow for it to be processed, defaults to false. So like, it's chill about failed parents.

notes — notes => {foo => 'bar', baz => [1, 2, 3]}

Hash reference with arbitrary metadata for this job that gets serialized by the backend (often with Mojo::JSON), so you shouldn't send objects and be careful with binary data, nested data structures with hash and array references are fine though. It's your little notes section.

parents — parents => [$id1, $id2, $id3]

One or more existing jobs this job depends on, and that need to have transitioned to the state finished before it can be processed. So like, it waits for its parents to finish.

priority — priority => 5

Job priority, defaults to 0. Jobs with a higher priority get performed first. Priorities can be positive or negative, but should be in the range between 100 and -100. So like, VIP treatment.

queue — queue => 'important'

Queue to put job in, defaults to default. Pick your lane, bestie.

foreground

my $bool = $minion->foreground($id);

Retry job in minion_foreground queue, then perform it right away with a temporary worker in this process, very useful for debugging. It's the debug baddie move.

guard

my $guard = $minion->guard('foo', 3600);
my $guard = $minion->guard('foo', 3600, {limit => 20});

Same as lock, but returns a scope guard object that automatically releases the lock as soon as the object is destroyed, or undef if aquiring the lock failed. Note: original says "aquiring", so we keep it.

# Only one job should run at a time (unique job)
$minion->add_task(do_unique_stuff => sub ($job, @args) {
  return $job->finish('Previous job is still active')
    unless my $guard = $minion->guard('fragile_backend_service', 7200);
  ...
});

# Only five jobs should run at a time and we try again later if necessary
$minion->add_task(do_concurrent_stuff => sub ($job, @args) {
  return $job->retry({delay => 30})
    unless my $guard = $minion->guard('some_web_service', 60, {limit => 5});
  ...
});

history

my $history = $minion->history;

Get history information for job queue. Like, the receipts.

These fields are currently available:

daily — daily => [{epoch => 12345, finished_jobs => 95, failed_jobs => 2}, ...]

Hourly counts for processed jobs from the past day. The stats are statting.

is_locked

my $bool = $minion->is_locked('foo');

Check if a lock with that name is currently active. Is it locked? Let's find out.

job

my $job = $minion->job($id);

Get Minion::Job object without making any changes to the actual job or return undef if job does not exist. It's a read-only vibe.

# Check job state
my $state = $minion->job($id)->info->{state};

# Get job metadata
my $progress = $minion->job($id)->info->{notes}{progress};

# Get job result
my $result = $minion->job($id)->info->{result};

jobs

my $jobs = $minion->jobs;
my $jobs = $minion->jobs({states => ['inactive']});

Return Minion::Iterator object to safely iterate through job information. It's the safe way to scroll through jobs.

# Iterate through jobs for two tasks
my $jobs = $minion->jobs({tasks => ['foo', 'bar']});
while (my $info = $jobs->next) {
  say "$info->{id}: $info->{state}";
}

# Remove all failed jobs from a named queue
my $jobs = $minion->jobs({states => ['failed'], queues => ['unimportant']});
while (my $info = $jobs->next) {
  $minion->job($info->{id})->remove;
}

# Count failed jobs for a task
say $minion->jobs({states => ['failed'], tasks => ['foo']})->total;

These options are currently available:

ids — ids => ['23', '24']

List only jobs with these ids.

notes — notes => ['foo', 'bar']

List only jobs with one of these notes.

queues — queues => ['important', 'unimportant']

List only jobs in these queues.

states — states => ['inactive', 'active']

List only jobs in these states.

tasks — tasks => ['foo', 'bar']

List only jobs for these tasks.

These fields are currently available:

args — args => ['foo', 'bar']

Job arguments.

attempts — attempts => 25
attempts — Number of times performing this job will be attempted. 💅
children — Jobs depending on this job. Like, children => ['10026', '10027', '10028'] 🧚
created — Epoch time job was created. created => 784111777 ⏰
delayed — Epoch time job was delayed to. delayed => 784111777 ⏳
expires — Epoch time job is valid until before it expires. expires => 784111777 ⏰
finished — Epoch time job was finished. finished => 784111777 ✅
id — Job id. id => 10025 🆔
lax — Existing jobs this job depends on may also have failed to allow for it to be processed. lax => 0 😌
notes — Hash reference with arbitrary metadata for this job. notes => {foo => 'bar', baz => [1, 2, 3]} 📝
parents — Jobs this job depends on. parents => ['10023', '10024', '10025'] 👪
priority — Job priority. priority => 3 🔝
queue — Queue name. queue => 'important' 📬
result — Job result. result => 'All went well!' 🎉
retried — Epoch time job has been retried. retried => 784111777 🔁
retries — Number of times job has been retried. retries => 3 🔄
started — Epoch time job was started. started => 784111777 🚀
state — Current job state, usually "active", "failed", "finished" or "inactive". state => 'inactive' 💤
task — Task name. task => 'foo' 🏷️
time — Server time. time => 78411177 ⏰ (note: it's 78411177, not a typo, bestie!)
worker — Id of worker that is processing the job. worker => '154' 👷

🔒 lock

my $bool = $minion->lock('foo', 3600); my $bool = $minion->lock('foo', 3600, {limit => 20});

Try to acquire a named lock that will expire automatically after the given amount of time in seconds. You can release the lock manually with unlock to limit concurrency, or let it expire for rate limiting. For convenience you can also use guard to release the lock automatically, even if the job failed. 💅

# Only one job should run at a time (unique job)
$minion->add_task(do_unique_stuff => sub ($job, @args) {
  return $job->finish('Previous job is still active')
    unless $minion->lock('fragile_backend_service', 7200);
  ...
  $minion->unlock('fragile_backend_service');
});

# Only five jobs should run at a time and we wait for our turn
$minion->add_task(do_concurrent_stuff => sub ($job, @args) {
  sleep 1 until $minion->lock('some_web_service', 60, {limit => 5});
  ...
  $minion->unlock('some_web_service');
});

# Only a hundred jobs should run per hour and we try again later if necessary
$minion->add_task(do_rate_limited_stuff => sub ($job, @args) {
  return $job->retry({delay => 3600})
    unless $minion->lock('another_web_service', 3600, {limit => 100});
  ...
  $minion->unlock('another_web_service');
});

An expiration time of 0 can be used to check if a named lock could have been acquired without creating one. 🕵️‍♀️

# Check if the lock "foo" could have been acquired
say 'Lock could have been acquired' unless $minion->lock('foo', 0);

Or to simply check if a named lock already exists you can also use is_locked. 🔍

These options are currently available:

limit — limit => 20 — Number of shared locks with the same name that can be active at the same time, defaults to 1.

🆕 new

my $minion = Minion->new(Pg => 'postgresql://postgres@/test'); my $minion = Minion->new(Pg => Mojo::Pg->new);

Construct a new Minion object. 💖

🎭 perform_jobs

$minion->perform_jobs; $minion->perform_jobs({queues => ['important']});

Perform all jobs with a temporary worker, very useful for testing. 🧪

# Longer version
my $worker = $minion->worker;
while (my $job = $worker->register->dequeue(0)) { $job->perform }
$worker->unregister;

These options are currently available:

id — id => '10023' — Dequeue a specific job.
min_priority — min_priority => 3 — Do not dequeue jobs with a lower priority.
queues — queues => ['important'] — One or more queues to dequeue jobs from, defaults to "default".

🏃 perform_jobs_in_foreground

$minion->perform_jobs_in_foreground; $minion->perform_jobs_in_foreground({queues => ['important']});

Same as perform_jobs, but all jobs are performed in the current process, without spawning new processes. 🦋

🛠️ repair

$minion = $minion->repair;

Repair worker registry and job queue if necessary. 🔧

🔄 reset

$minion = $minion->reset({all => 1});

Reset job queue. 🧹

These options are currently available:

all — all => 1 — Reset everything.
locks — locks => 1 — Reset only locks.

⏳ result_p

my $promise = $minion->result_p($id); my $promise = $minion->result_p($id, {interval => 5});

Return a Mojo::Promise object for the result of a job. The state "finished" will result in the promise being "fullfilled", and the state "failed" in the promise being "rejected". This operation can be cancelled by resolving the promise manually at any time. 🎀

# Enqueue job and receive the result at some point in the future
my $id = $minion->enqueue('foo');
$minion->result_p($id)->then(sub ($info) {
  my $result = ref $info ? $info->{result} : 'Job already removed';
  say "Finished: $result";
})->catch(sub ($info) {
  say "Failed: $info->{result}";
})->wait;

These options are currently available:

interval — interval => 5 — Polling interval in seconds for checking if the state of the job has changed, defaults to 3.

📊 stats

my $stats = $minion->stats;

Get statistics for the job queue. 📈

# Check idle workers
my $idle = $minion->stats->{inactive_workers};

These fields are currently available:

active_jobs — active_jobs => 100 — Number of jobs in "active" state.
active_locks — active_locks => 100 — Number of active named locks.
active_workers — active_workers => 100 — Number of workers that are currently processing a job.
delayed_jobs — delayed_jobs => 100 — Number of jobs in "inactive" state that are scheduled to run at specific time in the future or have unresolved dependencies.
enqueued_jobs — enqueued_jobs => 100000 — Rough estimate of how many jobs have ever been enqueued.
failed_jobs — failed_jobs => 100 — Number of jobs in "failed" state.
finished_jobs — finished_jobs => 100 — Number of jobs in "finished" state.
inactive_jobs — inactive_jobs => 100 — Number of jobs in "inactive" state.
inactive_workers — inactive_workers => 100 — Number of workers that are currently not processing a job.
uptime — uptime => 1000 — Uptime in seconds.
workers — workers => 200; — Number of registered workers.

🔓 unlock

my $bool = $minion->unlock('foo');

Release a named lock that has been previously acquired with lock. 🔓

👷 worker

my $worker = $minion->worker;

Build Minion::Worker object. Note that this method should only be used to implement custom workers. 🛠️

# Use the standard worker with all its features
my $worker = $minion->worker;
$worker->status->{jobs} = 12;
$worker->status->{queues} = ['important'];
$worker->run;

# Perform one job manually in a separate process
my $worker = $minion->repair->worker->register;
my $job    = $worker->dequeue(5);
$job->perform;
$worker->unregister;

# Perform one job manually in this process
my $worker = $minion->repair->worker->register;
my $job    = $worker->dequeue(5);
if (my $err = $job->execute) { $job->fail($err) }
else                         { $job->finish }
$worker->unregister;

# Build a custom worker performing multiple jobs at the same time
my %jobs;
my $worker = $minion->repair->worker->register;
do {
  for my $id (keys %jobs) {
    delete $jobs{$id} if $jobs{$id}->is_finished;
  }
  if (keys %jobs >= 4) { sleep 5 }
  else {
    my $job = $worker->dequeue(5);
    $jobs{$job->id} = $job->start if $job;
  }
} while keys %jobs;
$worker->unregister;

👥 workers

my $workers = $minion->workers; my $workers = $minion->workers({ids => [2, 3]});

Return Minion::Iterator object to safely iterate through worker information. 🔄

# Iterate through workers
my $workers = $minion->workers;
while (my $info = $workers->next) {
  say "$info->{id}: $info->{host}";
}

These options are currently available:

ids — ids => ['23', '24'] — List only workers with these ids.

These fields are currently available:

id — id => 22 — Worker id.
host — host => 'localhost' — Worker host.
jobs — jobs => ['10023', '10024', '10025', '10029'] — Ids of jobs the worker is currently processing.
notified — notified => 784111777 — Epoch time worker sent the last heartbeat.
pid — pid => 12345 — Process id of worker.
started — started => 784111777 — Epoch time worker was started.
status — status => {queues => ['default', 'important']} — Hash reference with whatever status information the worker would like to share.

🧬 API

This is the class hierarchy of the Minion distribution. 👑

Minion
Minion::Backend
- Minion::Backend::Pg
Minion::Command::minion
Minion::Command::minion::job
Minion::Command::minion::worker
Minion::Iterator
Minion::Job
Minion::Worker
Mojolicious::Plugin::Minion
Mojolicious::Plugin::Minion::Admin

🎀 BUNDLED FILES 🎀

okay so bestie, the Minion distribution ships with a few files that come with different licenses — they got bundled in for internal use only, so don't go thinking everything in here is under one big license umbrella. Each one keeps its own. 💅

🌸 Minion Artwork

Licensed under the CC-SA License, Version 4.0, <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

the literal founders and the whole squad that made this happen:

💜 Project Founder

Sebastian Riedel, "sri@cpan.org".

💜 Contributors

In alphabetical order, no favourites, we love all of them equally:

Andrey Khozov
Andrii Nikitin
Brian Medley
Franz Skale
Henrik Andersen
Hubert "depesz" Lubaczewski
Joel Berger
Paul Williams
Russell Shingleton
Stefan Adams
Stuart Skelton

📜 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 📜

This program is free software, you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License version 2.0. periodt. ✨

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie 🫶 this one's rendered by perl v5.42.0 and dated 2026-01-17, filed under Minion(3). go forth and slay your job queues 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from

fedora 44: perl-Minion 11.0-2.fc44 · Artistic-2.0 AND CC-BY-SA-4.0 AND MIT AND ISC
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-10-14: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

Minion(3)

✨ NAME ✨

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

🎀 EVENTS 🎀

enqueue

worker

✨ ATTRIBUTES ✨

app

backend

backoff

missing_after

remove_after

stuck_after

tasks

💅 METHODS 💅

add_task

broadcast

class_for_task

enqueue

foreground

guard

history

is_locked

job

jobs

🔒 lock

🆕 new

🎭 perform_jobs

🏃 perform_jobs_in_foreground

🛠️ repair

🔄 reset

⏳ result_p

📊 stats

🔓 unlock

👷 worker

👥 workers

🧬 API

🎀 BUNDLED FILES 🎀

🌸 Minion Artwork

🌸 Bootstrap

🌸 jQuery

🌸 D3.js

🌸 epoch.js

🌸 Font Awesome

🌸 moment.js

👑 AUTHORS 👑

💜 Project Founder

💜 Contributors

📜 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 📜

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗